Arthur Kornberg, synthesizer of DNA, dies

Palo Alto, Calif. -- Dr. Arthur Kornberg, the Nobel Prize-winner who was the first scientist to synthesize DNA, has died at a California hospital.

The cause was respiratory failure, The Los Angeles Times reported. Kornberg was 89.

In addition to his achievements as a researcher, Kornberg brought a distinguished group of scientists to the biochemistry department at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In his own family, his son, Roger, won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry last year.

"It's really the passing of a generation," said Dr. Philip Pizzo, the medical school's dean. "Without doubt, his legacy will live on for many, many generations to come."

Kornberg was already working on DNA and its composition when James Watson and Francis Crick announced the discovery of its molecular structure in 1953. He confirmed that DNA carries genetic information in cells.

Kornberg shared the 1959 Nobel Prize for Medicine with Severo Ochoa, who performed similar work with RNA.

© 2007 United Press International.