SHINYA YAMANAKA: MODEST RESEARCHER. RESULTS TO BRAG ABOUT

摘要

Few researchers have rocketed from relative obscurity to superstar status as quickly as Shinya Yamanaka. At the beginning of 2006, his work on stem cells was little noted beyond Japan's Kyoto University, where he has been a professor since 2004. But he gained international scientific recognition in mid-2006 when he reprogrammed adult mouse cells to behave like embryonic stem cells without the use of embryos. Then, last November, when he showed he could replicate the trick using adult human cells, he garnered mainstream press coverage around the world, earning praise from bioethicists who object to research involving human embryos and generating whispers of a possible Nobel Prize in the scientific community.