Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and John Gurdon of Britain won the Nobel Prize on Monday for work in cell programming, a frontier that has raised dreams of growing replacement tissue for people crippled by disease.
The two scientists were lauded for determining that adult cells can be transformed back to an infant, versatile state called stem cells.
“Their findings have revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisms develop,” the Nobel jury declared. Gurdon told Swedish Radio he was surprised by the honour, since his award-winning research was done more than 40 years ago. “I’m amazed and immensely grateful and astonished that they should recognise work done such a long time ago,” he said.
“Of course I’m extremely grateful to be recognised with Shinya Yamanaka who’s done this wonderful work.” By reprogramming human cells, “scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy,” the Nobel committee said.
Stem cells are precursor cells which differentiate into the various organs of the body. They have stirred huge excitement, with hopes that they can be coaxed into growing into replacement tissue for victims of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other diseases.
Gurdon’s achievement in 1962 was to discover that the DNA code in the nucleus of an adult frog cell held all the information to develop into every kind of cell.
This meant that an adult cell could in essence be reprogrammed.
His landmark discovery was initially met with scepticism, as the journey from immature to specialised cell was previously deemed irreversible.
