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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: U.S. Researcher Wins Chemistry Nobel for Genetics Work


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U.S. biologist Roger D. Kornberg has won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for helping to unravel how cells make proteins using genetic information.

Kornberg was able to capture freeze-frame images of a genetic process called transcription (inset). During transcription, DNA (blue) unwinds and is used to make a molecule known as messenger RNA (red). Messenger RNA is then used to construct proteins, which are essential to every aspect of life. Many proteins are enzymes that facilitate chemical reactions, such as the polymerase (white) that makes transcription possible.

Photograph courtesy Stanford University/inset © Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences