John B. Gurdon

Profession: Developmental biologist

Nationality:

Biography: John Gurdon is a British developmental biologist best known for his research in nuclear transplantation and cloning. In 2012, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Shinya Yamanaka "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent."

Gurdon's early work focused on nuclear transplantation in Xenopus frogs. In 1958, he successfully cloned a frog using somatic cell nuclear transfer, demonstrating that the nucleus of a differentiated cell could give rise to a whole new organism.

This eventually led to his work with Yamanaka, which proved that adult cells can be turned back into undifferentiated stem cells. These induced pluripotent stem cells can then become a wide variety of adult cell types, including heart and brain cells.

Gurdon held positions at the University of Oxford, the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, and the University of Cambridge. He was a founding member and chairman of the Wellcome/CRC Institute for Cell Biology and Cancer, later renamed the Gurdon Institute in his honor.

Gurdon's contributions have been recognized with numerous awards and honors, including a knighthood in 1995 and the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award in 2009.

Born: October 2, 1933
Birthplace: Dippenhall, Hampshire, England
Age: 90 years old

Generation: Silent Generation
Chinese Zodiac: Rooster
Star Sign: Libra