Gurdon, Sir John Bertrand (1933-…), a British biologist, was awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. He shared the prize with the Japanese biologist Shinya Yamanaka. The two scientists won for discoveries concerning how adult cells can be transformed into stem cells. A stem cell is a living cell that can develop into any of the various kinds of cells that make up the tissues and organs of the body (see Stem cell ). Living organisms develop from stem cells.
In 1962, Gurdon demonstrated that the genetic (hereditary) material in a single cell contained all the information needed to develop an entire organism. He removed the genetic material from a single cell in the intestines of an adult frog. He inserted the material into an unfertilized frog egg. The new cell began to divide and developed into a tadpole, just as the stem cell does in a fertilized egg. Scientists had long thought that adult cells lost the ability to change into other cells as stem cells do. By creating new stem cells from adult cells, researchers hope to develop treatments for many diseases. The new stem cells can, for example, be used to create healthy cells to replace damaged cells in the body.
John Bertrand Gurdon was born on Oct. 2, 1933, in Dippenhall, near London. He studied zoology at the University of Oxford, earning a doctorate degree in 1960. He conducted research at the California Institute of Technology in Los Angeles and at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. In 1989, he founded the Gurdon Institute at Cambridge, which is dedicated to the study of developmental biology and cancer. He was knighted in 1995.
See also Yamanaka, Shinya .
