Stem cell scientists share 2012 Nobel Prize for medicine

摘要

Two stem cell pioneers shared this year's US$l-2 million Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine, in recognition of discoveries thatthe Nobel committee said "challenged and shattered dogma", and which have "opened up whole new frontiers of research".The UK's Sir John Gurdon, who is based at the eponymous Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge, was bestowed with the honour for his classic demonstration in the 1960s that ceil fate, contrary to the well established orthodoxy at the time, was in fact a two-way street. By replacing the nucleus of a frog egg cell with the nucleus of a mature intestinal cell from the same animal, Gurdon created a modified egg cell that went on to develop into a normal tadpole. At a stroke, he had created cloning, and rewritten the rule book on cellular development and specialisation.