John Gordon and Shinya Yamanaka Receive Nobel Prize

John Gordon and Shinya Yamanaka Receive Nobel Prize

By: Jonathan Hays, Europe News, October 9, 2012

Gordon and Yamanaka share their Nobel Prize

     European stem cell researcher John Gurdon and japanese stem cell researcher Shinya Yamanaka recently share a Noble Prize for their work. They have discovered how alter adult cells into stem cells, which can be used for any other parts in the body.

     In 1962, John Gurdon originally discovered that specialized cells could be changed into unspecialized cells, which could further develop into any other tissue in the body. He solved this by taking a matured cell nucleus from a frog intestine and replacing the nucleus of a frog egg with it. This altered egg then fully developed into a tadpole. This proved his theory, which was initially declared preposterous by his biology teacher.

     Forty-four years later, Shinya Yamanaka discovered how specialized cells in mice could be altered to become unspecialized cells, or stem cells. By involving only a few new genes, he could reprogram these matured cells to become stem cells.

     Their discoveries have been referred to as “revolutionary” by the Nobel Prize committee, and have defined that matured cells are not confined to their original specialized state. Their discoveries have caused textbooks to be rewritten and have lead to new research over the years. Because of this revolutionary information, humans could eventually discover how to create new limbs for people rather than prosthetics,  or could create blood cells for blood transfusions.

Sources:
“Gurdon and Yamanaka share Nobel prize for stem cell work,” BBC News, last modified October 8, 2012, accessed October 9, 2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19869673.

“Nobel prize goes to Briton, Japanese for stem cell work,” last modified October 8, 2012, accessed October 9, 2012, http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/55042970-68/cells-nobel-prize-yamanaka.html.csp.