British-Japanese duo win Nobel for stem cell research
SWEDEN: Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and John B. Gurdon of Britain
won the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for their groundbreaking work on
stem cells, the jury said.
The pair were honoured “for the discovery that mature cells can be
reprogrammed to become pluripotent,” it said.
The two discovered “that mature, specialised cells can be
reprogrammed to become immature cells capable of developing into all
tissues of the body,” it said.
By reprogramming human cells, “scientists have created new
opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and
therapy,” the Nobel committee said.
Gurdon is currently at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, while
Yamanaka is a professor at Kyoto University in Japan.
Because of the economic crisis, the Nobel Foundation has slashed the
prize sum to eight million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million, 930,000 euros)
per award, down from the 10 million kronor awarded since 2001. Last
year, the honour went to Bruce Beutler of the United States, Jules
Hoffmann of Luxembourg and Ralph Steinman of Canada, for their
groundbreaking work on the immune system.
This year’s laureates will receive their prize at a formal ceremony
in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred
Nobel’s death in 1896.
AFP |