John Gurdon facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John Gurdon
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Sir John Gurdon in 2012
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John Bertrand Gurdon
2 October 1933 Dippenhall, Surrey, England
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| Citizenship | British |
| Alma mater | Eton College Christ Church, Oxford (MA, DPhil) |
| 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 2 October 1933) is a famous British scientist who studies how animals develop. He is best known for his amazing work in cloning and for being one of the first scientists to clone an animal.
In 2012, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with another scientist, Shinya Yamanaka. They won the prize for discovering that regular adult cells can be turned back into powerful stem cells, which can grow into any type of cell in the body.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Gurdon went to the famous Eton College for school. You might be surprised to learn that he was not a top student in science. In fact, he was ranked last in his class for biology. One of his teachers even wrote a report that said, "I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist; on his present showing this is quite ridiculous."
Gurdon found this so funny that he framed the report and kept it. He said it was a good reminder that even when experiments fail, it doesn't mean you're not good enough. It shows that you don't have to be the best in school to achieve great things.
After Eton, he went to Christ Church, Oxford. He first studied classics (the study of ancient Greece and Rome) but then switched to zoology. He later earned his doctorate degree by studying a type of frog called Xenopus.
Scientific Breakthroughs
Cloning a Frog
In 1958, while at the University of Oxford, Gurdon did a groundbreaking experiment. He successfully cloned a frog. To do this, he used a technique called nuclear transfer.
Here's how it worked:
- He took a normal body cell (a somatic cell) from a tadpole.
- He carefully removed the nucleus from that cell. The nucleus is like the cell's "brain" because it contains all the genetic instructions (DNA).
- Then, he took a frog's egg cell and removed its original nucleus.
- Finally, he placed the tadpole's nucleus into the empty egg cell.
The egg cell, with its new nucleus, began to grow and develop. It eventually grew into a new tadpole that was a perfect genetic copy—a clone—of the tadpole that the nucleus came from.
This experiment was incredibly important. At the time, many scientists believed that once a cell became specialized, like a skin cell or a muscle cell, it couldn't be used to create a whole new animal. Gurdon's work proved that even a specialized cell still holds all the instructions needed to make a complete organism. His methods are still used by scientists today.
Using Frog Eggs as Factories
Gurdon also found a new way to use frog eggs to study genes. He and his team injected messenger RNA (mRNA) into the eggs. mRNA molecules are like instruction sheets made from DNA. The frog eggs would "read" these instructions and make the proteins they described. This allowed scientists to figure out what different genes do.
Major Awards and Recognition
Sir John Gurdon's work has earned him many of the world's top science awards.
- Royal Medal (1985): A prestigious award from the Royal Society, a group of the most respected scientists in the UK.
- Wolf Prize in Medicine (1989): A major international award given for achievements that help humankind.
- Lasker Award (2009): Often called "America's Nobel," this prize is for major advances in medical science.
- Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2012): He shared the Nobel Prize for his discovery that adult cells can be "reprogrammed" to act like young stem cells.
In 1995, he was knighted by the Queen for his services to science, which is why he is called Sir John Gurdon. In 2004, a research center at the University of Cambridge was renamed the Gurdon Institute in his honor.
Personal Life
Gurdon has said that his political views are "middle of the road." In terms of religion, he calls himself an agnostic. This means he believes there is no scientific proof to either prove or disprove the existence of God.
He was married to Jean Elizabeth Margaret Curtis, and they have a son and a daughter.
See also
In Spanish: John Gurdon para niños
