Arthur Kornberg - Family Life

Family Life

On November 21, 1943, Kornberg married Sylvy Ruth Levy, also a biochemist of note. She worked closely with Kornberg and contributed significantly to the discovery of DNA polymerase. The day after he was awarded the Nobel prize, she was quoted in a newspaper as saying "I was robbed".

Arthur and Sylvy Kornberg had three sons: Roger David Kornberg (1947), Thomas B. Kornberg (1948), and Kenneth Andrew Kornberg (1950). Arthur and his wife were Orthodox Jews. Roger is Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford University, and the 2006 laureate of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Thomas discovered DNA polymerase II and III in 1970 and is now a professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Kenneth is an architect specializing in the design of biomedical and biotechnology laboratories and buildings.

Arthur Kornberg was married three times. His first two wives predeceased him. Sylvy Kornberg died in 1986. Arthur Kornberg remarried in 1988 but his second wife, the former Charlene Walsh Levering, died in 1995. In December 1998 Arthur Kornberg married Carolyn Dixon. She survived him.

When he was in his eighties Arthur Kornberg continued to conduct research full-time at Department of Biochemistry at Stanford. He died on October 26, 2007 at Stanford Hospital from respiratory failure.