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U.S. researcher wins Nobel chemistry prize

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- U.S. researcher Roger Kornberg Wednesday won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the transfer of genetic information.

Kornberg, 59, of Stanford University, was cited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for research on the process called transcription in which cells copy genetic data from the nucleus to the outer part of the cell. Problems in transcription are considered the cause of many diseases, including some cancers.

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He will receive the prize, along with a cash award of about $1.4 million in ceremonies Dec. 10 in Sweden. Kornberg is the son of 1959 Nobel Medicine Laureate Arthur Kornberg.

The academy said the younger Kornberg's research has culminated in his "creation of detailed crystallographic pictures describing the transcription apparatus in full action in a eukaryotic cell." The pictures' detail makes it possible to understand transcription and how it is regulated.

The 2006 Nobel Prizes will be announced through next week, with the Economics Prize unveiled Monday, wrapping up with the Peace Prize announcement on Oct. 13. U.S. scientists have won the 2006 Nobel Prizes for Medicine and Physics.

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