John Gurdon, a developmental biologist whose work laid the foundation of stem cell research, has passed away at the age of 92.
Gurdon was born in a rural hamlet in southeast England in 1933. As a boy, he was fascinated by nature and was a keen observer of the ways that caterpillars transformed into moths and butterflies. He attended school at Eton, where he was dissuaded from pursuing biology by a teacher who wrote that Gurdon’s ambition to become a scientist was “ridiculous,” an assessment that effectively barred Gurdon from further studies in science at the school.
But Gurdon was not dissuaded. He studied zoology as an undergraduate student at Oxford, where he later obtained a doctorate degree.
In the late 1950s, Gurdon transferred nuclei from adult cells of the frog species Xenopus laevis into eggs and showed that the resulting cells took on embryonic characteristics. This advance established that cells retain all of their genes as they specialize and that fully developed cells can be re-set to an embryonic state — controversial discoveries at the time. Decades later, Shinya Yamanaka unlocked a new realm of practical possibilities for nuclear reprogramming when he made adult cells behave like embryonic cells by adding only a few factors. This revelation has offered scientists novel ways to harness and study the powers of embryonic development.
Gurdon and Yamanaka were honored together with a 2009 Lasker Basic Medical Research Award.
