NOBEL PRIZE ANNOUNCEMENT!
Congratulations to the winners of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine:
John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka are the joint winners of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.
Check out this article for more information on pluripotent stem cells and these two scientist’s contribution to medicine:
Personal note:
I do think that the Nobel committee should have included Dr. James Thomson on this shared award. He was the first to derive human embryonic stem cells, and he and Dr. Yamanaka each published the iPS results in the same issue of Nature on work they had been doing simultaneously. Both recipients are very deserving, but Dr. Thomson made significant contributions to this field of research, in a manner deserving of recognition.
This was a pretty obvious choice this year, but that does not diminish the incredible science done by these two gentlemen. I guess what I’m really saying is “I totally picked right, so go me!”
I agree that Wisconsin’s James Thomson could/should have been included in this award along with Yamanaka (although Gurdon’s work predates them). The protein factors that turn on the appropriate genes to convert adult cells back into an embryonic or stem cell-like state would not be known without Dr. Thomson’s work. We got mad love for ya, Dr. Thomson.
It’s one of the fastest “research to Nobel” turnarounds that I know of, but I think it’s well-deserved. It may yet be decades before we see medical benefits resulting from this sort of work, but we have come close to decoding one of the most basic questions of biology: What makes this cell do this thing, and how can we make it do something else?
Happy Nobel-mas! More awards to come …