Since our introduction to Dolly the sheep in the 1990s, it seems somewhat logical that a whole organism can be made from the nucleus of a mature somatic cell. However, the idea defied dogma at the time when John Gurdon, then a graduate student, first proved that an entire tadpole could be made from combining a denucleated embryonic cell with a somatic cell nucleus. From this discovery, cloning was born and he has extended his research to the understanding of mRNA translation and gene regulation. John Gurdon was knighted in 1995 and has had an institute named in his honour (the Gurdon Institute) for his unique contributions to science.
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