文档介绍：2012-10-08
The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012
jointly to
John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka
for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed 
to e pluripotent
Summary
The Nobel Prize recognizes two scientists who discovered that mature, specialised cells can be reprogrammed to e immature cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body. Their findings have revolutionised our understanding of how cells anisms develop.
John B. Gurdon discovered in 1962 that the specialisation of cells is reversible. In a classic experiment, he replaced the immature cell nucleus in an egg cell of a frog with the nucleus from a mature intestinal cell. This modified egg cell developed into a normal tadpole. The DNA of the mature cell still had all the information needed to develop all cells in the frog.
Shinya Yamanaka discovered more than 40 years later, in 2006, how intact mature cells in mice could be reprogrammed to e immature stem cells. Surprisingly, by introducing only a few genes, he could reprogram mature cells to e pluripotent stem cells, . immature cells that are able to develop into all types of cells in the body.
These groundbreaking discoveries pletely changed our view of the development and cellular specialisation. We now understand that the mature cell does not have to be c