Stem cell pioneers receive Nobel Prize

Two pioneers of stem cell science have received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent".

Sir John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka, working separately, and decades apart, provided two key pieces of the puzzle that shed light on how cellular development occurs, and how we can wind back the clock.

Their research has opened up the door to cloning as well as to regenerative medicine, which could prove to be one of the biotechnology growth industries this century, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Portrait of Sir John B. Gurdon. (Photo: Wellcome Library, London.)

Gurdon’s work in 1962 found that the specialisation of cells is reversible. He took the nucleus from a mature adult frog cell, then placed it in the nucleus of a frog egg cell.

This modified egg cell developed into a normal tadpole, showing that the DNA in every mature cell has all the information needed to develop all cells in the frog.

More than 40 years later, Yamanaka discovered the four key genes that regulate the specialisation of cells into adult cells. By modifying those genes he could ‘turn back the clock’ and revert adult cells to become pluripotent stem cells, which were capable of becoming any other cell type.

Shinya Yamanaka in his laboratory. (Photo: Gladstone Institutes/Chris Goodfellow.)

Not only did these discoveries rewrite the textbook on cellular development and specialisation, but they open the door for creating clones from existing adults, a feat that has since been achieved several times.

They have also enabled a potential regenerative medicine revolution, which is still in its embryonic stages. Diseased cells can be reverted to stem cell stage and re-specialised to determine the cause of the ailment.

And further in the future, the hope is to take healthy adult cells, wind them back to pluripotent stage, and then specialise them into new cells that could replace diseased or damaged ones.

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 Cambridge University, UK, in 1972 and has served as Professor of Cell Biology and Master of Magdalene College. Gurdon is currently at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge.

Shinya Yamanaka was born in Osaka, Japan in 1962. He obtained his MD in 1987 at Kobe University and trained as an orthopaedic surgeon before switching to basic research. Yamanaka received his PhD at Osaka City University in 1993, after which he worked at the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco and Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. Yamanaka is currently Professor at Kyoto University and also affiliated with the Gladstone Institute.