ANDRZEJ KRAUZE
This year, life science researchers bagged both the Physiology or Medicine and the Chemistry Nobel Prizes. Cell biologists John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka won “for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent,” and molecular biologists Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka “for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors.”
Gurdon was recognized for his pioneering nuclear transplantation experiments, in which he inserted nuclei from adult intestine cells into enucleated frog eggs that went on to hatch into tadpoles, demonstrating that adult genomes can be returned to a state of pluripotency. When the work was published in 1962 (the year Yamanaka was born), “there was virtually no expectation of any immediate therapeutic benefits. . . . It took nearly 10 years for the major result to ...
