Sir John Bertrand Gurdon is a developmental biologist from Great Britain. He has been awarded the Lasker Award in 2009 and, along with Shinya Yamanaka, the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2012. His research concerned discovering how mature cells can be converted to stem cells. The Nobel Assembly, according to Times Higher Education, stated that Gurdon’s discoveries “revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisms develop.”
DNA research
Gurdon began work on cloning frogs in 1962. He hypothesized that a mature cell’s genome had all the information needed to help it develop into all the different cells within an organism. The immature nucleus from a frog’s cell was replaced by the nucleus of a mature intestinal cell. The changed cell produced a normal tadpole. All the information needed to develop all of the frog’s cells was in the DNA.
Until others confirmed this find, many in the scientific world doubted this project’s validity. However, it opened the way for the scientific world to research and develop techniques that led them to cloning mammals.
It became apparent through Gurdon’s research that DNA was genetic material and an embryo needs all this genetic material to grow all of the body’s tissues. The question remained of what happened to the rest of the DNA after a specific area, such as the digestive system or the respiratory system, used the information it needed to develop. Sir John’s research demonstrated that the remaining genes were inactive but still present, so they would be able to be made active once again. Sir John showed that cloning was definitely possible.
RNA research
Gurdon’s work continued, as in 1971 he, along with colleagues at Oxford, translated messenger RNA to a protein. This RNA originated in a rabbit.
Follow-up research
Due to Gurdon’s work with frog embryos, Yamanaka, in 2006, was able to research how mature cells in mice could develop into any cell type, through reprogramming.
Public concern
Gurdon’s work has aroused ethical issues, but he and Yamanaka took those concerns seriously as they furthered their research with these issues in mind. Gurdon has stated that, as far as politics, he is “middle of the road.” He is also agnostic until he has proof one way or the other.
Regardless of the ethics of the use of this research, Sir John Gurdon’s study of frogs and their cells did help further cell research and cloning for the years ahead.
