John Gurdon facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sir
John Gurdon
|
|
|---|---|
Sir John Gurdon in 2012
|
|
| Born |
John Bertrand Gurdon
2 October 1933 Dippenhall, Surrey, England
|
| Citizenship | British |
| Alma mater | Eton College Christ Church, Oxford |
| Known for | Nuclear transfer, cloning |
| Awards | Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (1977) William Bate Hardy Prize (1984) Royal Medal (1985) International Prize for Biology (1987) Wolf Prize in Medicine (1989) Edwin Grant Conklin Medal (2001) Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award (2009) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2012) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biology and Developmental Biology |
| Institutions | University of Oxford MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology University of Cambridge California Institute of Technology |
| Thesis | Nuclear transplantation in Xenopus (1960) |
| Doctoral advisor | Michail Fischberg |
| Doctoral students | Douglas A. Melton Edward M. De Robertis |
Sir John Bertrand Gurdon (born October 2, 1933) is a famous British scientist who studies biology. He is best known for his amazing work on something called nuclear transplantation and cloning.
In 2009, he won the Lasker Award. Then, in 2012, he and Shinya Yamanaka shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. They won for discovering that grown-up cells can be changed back into stem cells.
Contents
Becoming a Scientist
John Gurdon went to a school called Eton College. He wasn't very good at science there. In fact, he was last in biology out of 250 boys! One of his teachers even wrote that his idea of becoming a scientist was "quite ridiculous."
Gurdon kept this report. He says it reminds him that it's okay when experiments don't work. It makes him think that maybe the teacher was right, and it helps him keep trying.
After school, Gurdon went to Christ Church, Oxford University. He first studied old languages, but then switched to zoology, which is the study of animals. For his advanced degree, he studied how to move the nucleus of a cell in a type of frog called Xenopus.
After more studies in America, he came back to England. He worked at the University of Oxford and later at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. In 1989, he helped start a new institute at Cambridge University. He was in charge of it until 2001.
Groundbreaking Research
Nuclear Transfer and Cloning
In 1958, when Gurdon was at the University of Oxford, he did a very important experiment. He successfully cloned a frog. He did this by taking the nucleus from a normal body cell of a Xenopus tadpole. Then, he put this nucleus into a frog egg that had its own nucleus removed.
This experiment was a big deal. It showed that the nucleus from a regular body cell still had all the information needed to create a whole new animal. Before this, many scientists thought that once a cell became a specific type (like a skin cell), its nucleus couldn't go back to being a "master" cell.
The word "clone" comes from an old Greek word meaning "twig." It was first used for plants. But in 1963, a British scientist named J. B. S. Haldane used the word "clone" to talk about animals, thanks to Gurdon's work.
Understanding Cells
Gurdon and his team also found a way to use Xenopus frog eggs to study messenger RNA (mRNA). mRNA carries instructions from DNA to make proteins. By injecting mRNA into frog eggs, scientists could see what proteins were made. This technique helped many scientists understand how proteins work.
Recent Discoveries
More recently, Gurdon's research has looked at how cells communicate with each other to become different types of cells. He also studies how a cell's nucleus can be "reprogrammed" in cloning experiments. This includes looking at how DNA is changed or "demethylated" when a nucleus is moved.
Views on Life
Gurdon says his political views are "middle of the road." When it comes to religion, he is an agnostic. This means he believes there isn't enough scientific proof to say if God exists or not. He considers himself a Christian, but not a Roman Catholic.
Awards and Recognition
Sir John Gurdon has received many honors for his scientific work. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1971. In 1995, he was made a Knight Bachelor, which means he can use "Sir" before his name.
Many important scientific groups around the world have also recognized him. These include the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the United States National Academy of Sciences.
In 2004, a research institute at Cambridge was renamed the Gurdon Institute in his honor. He also received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research in 2009.
The Nobel Prize
In 2012, Gurdon won the biggest science award: the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. He shared it with Shinya Yamanaka. They won for their discovery that mature cells can be "reprogrammed" to become pluripotent cells. Pluripotent cells are like blank slates; they can turn into almost any other cell type in the body. Gurdon's Nobel Lecture was titled "The Egg and the Nucleus: A Battle for Supremacy."
