- Hans Kornberg
Professor Sir Hans Leo Kornberg, FRS (born
14 January 1928 ) is a Britishbiochemist .Early Life, Education and Career
Kornberg was born in 1928 in
Germany ofJewish parents. In 1939 he leftNazi Germany (although his parents could not), and moved to the care of an uncle inYorkshire . Initially he went to a school for Germanrefugees , but later to a private school andWakefield Grammar School .On leaving school he became a junior laboratory technician for Dr Hans Krebs at the
University of Sheffield who encouraged him to study further and apply for a scholarship at the same university. He graduated with aBSc Honours inChemistry in 1949. His interest had now moved tobiochemistry and he studied in the Faculty ofMedicine , receiving a PhD degree in 1953 for a thesis entitled "Studies on gastricurease ".A Commonwealth Fund Exchange Fellowship of the Harkness Foundation enabled him to travel to the USA and work in several biochemistry laboratories. He then returned to the UK where his mentor Hans Krebs had moved to
Oxford University and offered him a post there. This partnership produced a paper inNature [H. L. Kornberg & H. A Krebs (1957) "Nature" 179, 988 - 991 Synthesis of Cell Constituents from C2-Units by a Modified Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle] and a joint book [H. A. Krebs & H. L. Kornberg (1957) "Energy Transformations in Living Matter" Springer (Berlin)] which was the first major publication onbiological thermodynamics . In 1960 he was appointed to the first Chair in Biochemistry at theUniversity of Leicester , which he held until 1975 when he was elected to the Sir William Dunn Chair of Biochemistry at theUniversity of Cambridge .From 1982 to 1995 he was Master of
Christ's College, Cambridge .In 1995 he left the Cambridge chair to take up a position as a Professor of Biology at
Boston University , USA, where he teaches biochemistry. His major research area is the nature and regulation ofcarbohydrate transport inmicro-organism s.Honours and Awards
He was elected to the
Royal Society in 1965 and the same year awarded the Colworth Medal of TheBiochemical Society . In 1973 he was awarded the Warburg Medal of the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. In 1978 he was knighted for "services to science". He has been awarded 11 honorary doctorates and has been elected into membership of:
*TheUnited States National Academy of Sciences
*The German Academy of Sciences "Leopoldina"
*The Italian National Academy of Sciences "Lincei"
*TheAmerican Philosophical Society
*TheAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences
*The American Society of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Biology
*The Japanese Biochemical Society
*Phi Beta Kappa Society Other Information
While at Oxford, he also met and married his first wife, Monica, a
radiographer ; she died in 1989. In 1991 he married Donna Haber. They live inBrookline Massachusetts .Professor Kornberg is a Distinguished Supporter of the
British Humanist Association .He was editor of the Sheffield University Rag Magazine
Twikker in 1947.He was President and a keen supporter of the Boat Club while he was Master of
Christ's College, Cambridge : the Boat Club has one boat "Sir Hans" named after him, and another "Lady K" after his wife.Sources
* [http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/contentViewArticle.asp?article=1162 British Humanist Society Distinguished Supporters]
*Jewish Year Book , 2005, p.214: List of Jewish Fellows of theRoyal Society
* [http://www.filmandsound.ac.uk/collections/records/0028-0000-2466-0000-0-0000-0000-0.html Professor Sir Hans Kornberg FRS in Conversation with Sir James Baddiley FRS October 1990]
* [http://www.bu.edu/biology/Faculty_Staff/hlk.html Current research interests (Boston University Biology Department)]
* [http://www.bu.edu/uni/faculty/profiles/kornberg.html Sir Hans Kornberg (Boston University Biology Department)]
*
*University of Sheffield Library: thesis collectionReferences
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