Academic posts After completing his graduate studies, Berg spent two years (1952–1954) as a
postdoctoral fellow with the
American Cancer Society, working at the Institute of Cytophysiology in
Copenhagen, Denmark, and the
Washington University School of Medicine, and spent additional time in 1954 as a scholar in cancer research with the department of microbiology at the Washington University School of Medicine. He worked with
Arthur Kornberg, while at Washington University. He was a professor at
Washington University School of Medicine from 1955 until 1959. After 1959, Berg moved to
Stanford University, where he taught biochemistry from 1959 until 2000 and served as director of the
Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine from 1985 until 2000.
Research interests Berg's postgraduate studies involved the use of radioisotope tracers to study
intermediary metabolism. This resulted in the understanding of how foodstuffs are converted to cellular materials, through the use of isotopic carbons or heavy nitrogen atoms. Paul Berg's doctorate paper is now known as the conversion of
formic acid,
formaldehyde and
methanol to fully reduced states of methyl groups in
methionine. He was also one of the first to demonstrate that folic acid and B12 cofactors had roles in the processes mentioned. Berg is arguably most famous for his pioneering work involving gene splicing of
recombinant DNA. Berg was the first scientist to create a molecule containing DNA from two different species by inserting DNA from another species into a molecule. This gene-splicing technique was a fundamental step in the development of modern
genetic engineering. After developing the technique, Berg used it for his studies of viral chromosomes. Berg was a
professor emeritus at Stanford. Berg was a member of the Board of Sponsors of the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Berg was recognized for "his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of
nucleic acids, with particular regard to
recombinant DNA", while Sanger and Gilbert were honored for "their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids."
Other awards and honors He was elected a Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the United States
National Academy of Sciences in 1966. In 1983,
Ronald Reagan presented Berg with the
National Medal of Science. That same year, he was elected to the
American Philosophical Society. In 1989, he received the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement. He was elected a
Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1992. In 2005 he was awarded the
Biotechnology Heritage Award by the
Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and the
Chemical Heritage Foundation. In 2006 he received
Wonderfest's Carl Sagan Prize for Science Popularization. ==Death==