Roger Kornberg is a remarkably versatile man. After the discovery of the structure of the gigantic transcription RNA polymerase complex that bagged him a Nobel Prize last year (and brought in shouts of "No chemistry Nobel to a biologist!"), he has now unravelled the structure of a gold-thiolate cluster at the exquisite resolution of 1.1 A, clearly a more "pure" chemistry achievement. The paper made the front page of this week's Science and has been called a tour de force.
For anyone liking crystals this will be delicious. The pictures in the SuppInfo are even better. The structure may lead to a revision of other previously thought structural notions.
Commentary
Paper DOI: 10.1126/science.1148624
Simple, atypical but neat estimation of energy released in fission
1 week ago in The Curious Wavefunction
Kornberg is a genius. Hence, whatever price he is awareded, he deserves it.
ReplyDeleteI agree. What a great paper. There are so many challenges associated with what that paper entailed and they overcame them all.
ReplyDeleteQuite. It is a testament to the perseverance and meticulousness of him and his group. Great achievement. Have you heard him talk? His words and manner of speaking are as meticulous and precise as his science.
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