And the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology goes to....

...Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.

Gurdon's major work in this area goes back to the 1960s. In '62, in what would become a classic experiment in developmental genetics, he removed the nucleus from a Xenopus egg cell, replacing it with the mature nucleus from an intestinal cell¹.  This modified egg cell then developed into a fully normal tadpole, indicating that the intestinal cell, despite being fully differentated, still held all the necessary 'instrictions' to form an entire organism. This became one of the pioneering experiments in both developmental genetics and nuclear transplantation. Gurdon's work was perhaps most important because it challenged the then prevalent dogma that a cell's fate was set in stone once it became specialized. Gurdon showd that this was not the case.

Yamanaka's major contribution is much more recent. Yamanaka was studying embryonic stem cells, which are always in an immature, undifferentiated state. He was interested in identifying the genes which kept these cells immature, and after finding and identifying a number of them, he wondered whether these genes could be used in mature cells to induce them to revert back into pluripotent stem cells². He and his team introduced four of the identified genes into mature fibroblasts, and observed that the mature cells would revert back into stem cells. These induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) could then go on to differentiate into many other cell types. This was a major breakthrough, and the discovery was lauded in all corners of the scientific world.

Both these discoveries have lead to research in medicine that could change the world, and many of the potential applications have yet to be realized. The use of iPS cells in effectively treating diseases or correcting genetic disorders is just on the horizon. Both the pioneering work of Gurdon and the breakthrough work of Yamanaka are definitely worthy of the Nobel Prize, indeed!

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1. Gurdon, J. B.; Elsdale, T. R.; Fischberg, M. (1958). "Sexually Mature Individuals of Xenopus laevis from the Transplantation of Single Somatic Nuclei". Nature 182 (4627): 64–65
(Read it here!) 

2. Takahashi, K.; Yamanaka, S. (2006). "Induction of Pluripotent Stem Cells from Mouse Embryonic and Adult Fibroblast Cultures by Defined Factors". Cell 126 (4): 663

The Obligatory 2012 pre-Nobel Prize Post

It's that time of year again! The 2012 Nobel Prizes will be handed out this week. Oct. 8th will be the first, in Physiology or Medicine. Physics is on the 9th, Chemistry on the 10th. The Peace, Economics and Literature prizes are to follow but who cares about those, really?

Any predictions on the winners? You can find a list of predicted winners by David Pendleburry, who has in the past made a number of accurate predictions, here. I have no predictions myself, this year, so the winners will be a surprise for me.

As usual, I'll post the winners on my blog as they happen.