| Citation | In 1974 Roger Kornberg, working at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, discovered the nucleosome, the basic unit of DNA coiling in chromosomes, and later showed that it served as a general gene repressor. Over the next thirty years he elucidated the mechanism and regulation of eukaryotic gene transcription. He developed a yeast transcription system and determined the atomic structure of the polymerase transcribing complex. He discovered the Mediator of a 20 - protein complex which is required for appropriately regulated transcription. He received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2006. |