Physiology and Medicine
Oct. 8th, 2012 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellestraIt's Nobel week and we'll get a new laureate every day. We start with the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine that was given to two stem cell researchers whose discoveries are over 40 years apart. John Gurdon from the UK and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan were awarded the prize "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent".
Stem cells are the cells that still have ability to turn into different types of specialised cells. That's how embryos are like and then few types of cells in our bodies - ones that produce blood cells or sperm - forever dividing. All the other cells only get limited divisions and use only the genes that are important for their function. They have specialized shape and specialized function and are unable to change. In normal conditions.
Sir John Gurdon 1962 showed in 1962 that if you take genetic material from a fully differentiated adult frog intestine cell and placed it inside a frog egg you will get a frog. Now this is what we know as cloning then it was unknown. It proved that every cell - even non-dividing, mature ones - contain all the genetic information the full organism.
In 2006 Shinya Yamanaka showed that those mature cells could be be reset back to that pluripotent stage and start over developing into a variety of other cell types. He did this by adding four genes to skin cells which transformed them into stem cells then those were able to become specialised cells again. This is what we hope to use to heal organs from hearts after stroke to brain damage to skin.
The Nobel committee said the discovery had "revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop. The discoveries of Gurdon and Yamanaka have shown that specialized cells can turn back the developmental clock under certain circumstances. These discoveries have also provided new tools for scientists around the world and led to remarkable progress in many areas of medicine."
It's pretty rare now for people to get Nobels so soon after the discovery. I know it's because the need to make sure the discoveries are real but it also undercuts their original goal. They were supposed to help the winners with continuing their careers (that's way they are not awarded posthumously). However, people who get them now are often at the very end of their career. I hope we can get to reward such revolutionary discoveries sooner instead of just saying high time.
Stem cells are the cells that still have ability to turn into different types of specialised cells. That's how embryos are like and then few types of cells in our bodies - ones that produce blood cells or sperm - forever dividing. All the other cells only get limited divisions and use only the genes that are important for their function. They have specialized shape and specialized function and are unable to change. In normal conditions.
Sir John Gurdon 1962 showed in 1962 that if you take genetic material from a fully differentiated adult frog intestine cell and placed it inside a frog egg you will get a frog. Now this is what we know as cloning then it was unknown. It proved that every cell - even non-dividing, mature ones - contain all the genetic information the full organism.
In 2006 Shinya Yamanaka showed that those mature cells could be be reset back to that pluripotent stage and start over developing into a variety of other cell types. He did this by adding four genes to skin cells which transformed them into stem cells then those were able to become specialised cells again. This is what we hope to use to heal organs from hearts after stroke to brain damage to skin.
The Nobel committee said the discovery had "revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop. The discoveries of Gurdon and Yamanaka have shown that specialized cells can turn back the developmental clock under certain circumstances. These discoveries have also provided new tools for scientists around the world and led to remarkable progress in many areas of medicine."
It's pretty rare now for people to get Nobels so soon after the discovery. I know it's because the need to make sure the discoveries are real but it also undercuts their original goal. They were supposed to help the winners with continuing their careers (that's way they are not awarded posthumously). However, people who get them now are often at the very end of their career. I hope we can get to reward such revolutionary discoveries sooner instead of just saying high time.
