The Nobel Prize honors two scientists who have discovered that mature, specialized cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells that can grow into all body tissues. Our results have revolutionized our view of how living cells and organisms.
In 1962, John B. Gurdon discovered that cell specialisation was reversible. He replaced the immature cell nucleus in a frog's egg cell, with the nucleus from a mature intestinal cell, in a classic experiment. This modified egg cell had become a normal tadpole. The mature cell 's DNA already had all the knowledge available to produce all cells inside the frog.
Shinya Yamanaka discovered more than 40 years later, in 2006, How mice could reprogram intact mature cells to become embryonic stem cells. Surprisingly, he may reprogram mature cells by adding just a few genes to become pluripotent stem cells, i.e. embryonic cells that can grow into all forms of cells within the body.Read more
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| Shinya Yamanaka was born in Osaka, Japan in 1962.He received his MD at Kobe University in 1987 and qualified as an orthopedic surgeon before going on to basic research. Yamanaka earned his PhD from the University of Osaka in 1993, following which he worked at the San Francisco Gladstone Institute and the Japanese Nara Institute of Science and Technology. Yamanaka is currently Professor at the University of Kyoto and an associate of the Gladstone Institute. |
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Sir John B. Gurdon was born in 1933 in Dippenhall, UK. He received his Doctorate from the University of Oxford in 1960 and was a postdoctoral fellow at California Institute of Technology. He joined University of Cambridge, UK in 1972 and worked as Professor of Cell Biology and Master of Magdalene College. Gurdon currently works at the Cambridge Gurdon Institute.HOME PAGE ARCHIVE |