Nobel Prize Laureate in Chemistry, Dr. Roger Kornberg’s Special Lecture On May 3rd, Dr. Roger Kornberg, Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry, Professor at Stanford University, as well as Erudite Professor at Konkuk University, visited Yonsei University to present a special lecture. Dr. Kornberg was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his studies on the process of genetic information from DNA transcribed to RNA. As his father, Dr. Arthur Kornberg, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine in 1959, Dr. Roger Kornberg’s win made them the sixth father and son to win the Nobel Prize. Held in the Jang Gi Won International Conference room at Yonsei Samsung Library, Dr. Roger Kornberg’s special lecture was organized by the Biomolecules Function Research Center, Institute of Biological Systems, Integrated OMICS for Biomedical Science Project, and Genome Institute. His lecture was attended by around 40 professors, including Professor Baek Yung-gi, Professor Jo Gin-won, and Professor Kim Young-joon, graduate students, and undergraduate students in the Department of Integrated OMICS for Biomedical Science. In his lecture, Dr. Kornberg elucidated the process of eukaryotic transcription, showing how transcription works at a molecular level. All organisms are either a eukaryocyte, which contains a nucleus in the cell, or an anuclear akaryocyte. In the nucleus of eukaryocyte reside DNA, and when the DNA combines with a specific protein the RNA synthetase constructs RNA. This is the transcription process, and organisms regulate activities by creating protein with this information from RNA. In addition, Dr. Kornberg underscored the medical importance of understanding the transcription process, pointing out that obstacles in this process have the potential to generate a number of diseases, such as cancer, cardiac disorder, and diverse infections.