In 1956, Arthur Kornberg and colleagues discovered DNA polymerase I (Pol I), in Escherichia coli . They described the DNA replication process by which DNA polymerase copies the base sequence of a template DNA strand. Kornberg was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in _____ for this work. DNA polymerase II was also discovered by Thomas Kornberg (the son of Arthur Kornberg) and Malcolm E. Gefter in 1970 while further elucidating the role of Pol I in E. coli DNA replication .