This year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine has been jointly awarded to two scientists who discovered that mature, specialised cells can be reprogrammed to become immature stem cells, capable of developing into all tissues of the host body.

 

The Nobel Prize Committee have awarded the prize to John Gurdon from the UK and Japan’s Shinya Yamanka, saying their findings have “revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisims develop”

 

The findings date back to 1962, when John Gurdon discovered that the specialisation of cells is reversible when he replaced the immature cell nucleus in an egg cell of a frog from the nucleus from a mature intestinal cell. The modified egg cell developed into a normal tadpole.

 

Shinya Yamanaka discovered more than 40 years later, in 2006, how intact mature cells in mice could be reprogrammed to become immature stem cells. Surprisingly, by introducing only a few genes, he could reprogram mature cells to become pluripotent stem cells, i.e. immature cells that are able to develop into all types of cells in the body.

 

“These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and cellular specialisation. We now understand that the mature cell does not have to be confined forever to its specialised state. Textbooks have been rewritten and new research fields have been established. By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy,” the Nobel Prize Committee said in a statement.