14 Facts About Sylvy Kornberg

Sylvy Kornberg nee Sylvia Ruth Levy was an American biochemist who carried out research on DNA replication and polyphosphate synthesis.

Sylvy Kornberg discovered and characterized polyphosphate kinase, an enzyme that helps build long chains of phosphate groups called polyphosphate that play a variety of metabolic and regulatory functions.

Sylvy Kornberg worked closely with her husband and research partner, Arthur Kornberg, contributing greatly to the characterization of DNA polymerization that earned him the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Sylvy Kornberg was the eldest of three children to parents who were Jewish refugees from Latvia and Belarus with no formal education who had worked in factories their entire lives.

Sylvy Kornberg was one of the few female students to do so.

Sylvy Kornberg earned an undergraduate degree in biochemistry in 1938, then went on to earn a Masters of Science in biochemistry in 1940, from the University of Rochester.

Sylvy Kornberg carried out her graduate research at the university's School of Medicine and Dentistry under Walter Bloor, who specialized in lipids.

Sylvy Kornberg took time off from the lab during this period to act as a full-time mother and wife.

One large contribution Sylvy Kornberg made to the work on DNA replication was the discovery and characterization of a contaminating enzyme that was inhibiting the DNA polymerization process they were trying to study.

Sylvy Kornberg was able to isolate and characterize the culprit: an enzyme that was degrading one of the DNA building blocks, deoxyguanosine triphosphate by removing its phosphates as a "tripolyphosphate" before it could be added.

Arthur Kornberg returned to the study of PolyP in his later research years, after Sylvy's passing.

Sylvy Kornberg continued to work with Arthur there for a couple of years before retiring.

Sylvy Kornberg was stricken by a rare neurodegenerative disease related to ALS, whose first symptoms arose in the late 1970s.

Sylvy Kornberg became reliant on a wheelchair, requiring round-the-clock care, and died at home in Portola Valley, California, June 6,1986, at the age of 69.