Kornberg, an active professor emeritus of biochemistry at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, shared the Nobel Prize in 1959 with Dr Severo Ochoa of New York University. Kornberg discovered the chemical mechanism that demonstrated how DNA, the blueprint of heredity, gets constructed in the cell.

“Dr Kornberg was one of the most distinguished and remarkable scientists in American medicine,” said Dr Philip Pizzo, dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine, in a statement. “His towering contributions have continued virtually up until the time of his death.”

Kornberg and Ochoa discovered new enzymes that create the genetic building blocks of DNA and RNA. Kornberg found and named what is known as DNA polymerase, which is responsible for assembling those building blocks. Their studies served as a precursor to genetic engineering, and have provided the basis for many drugs now in use to treat cancer and viral infections.

The doctor often referred to his career as “a love affair with enzymes.”

One of Kornberg’s sons, Dr Roger Kornberg, also won the 2006 Nobel Prize in chemistry for his work studying the enzymes that create RNA.