A lesson for all teachers - Nobel prize won by Briton written off in his teens by a science teacher

Sir John Gurdon shares the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine with Shinya Yamanaka, for reprogramming adult cells 

Nobel prizewinner Sir John Gurdon speaks at a press conference on Monday. His biology teacher described his ambitions to become a scientist as 'a sheer waste of time'.

A British researcher whose schoolboy ambition to become a scientist was dismissed as "quite ridiculous" by his Eton schoolmaster has won a Nobel prize for work that proved adult cells can be reprogramed and grown into different tissues in the body.

Sir John Gurdon, 79, of Cambridge University, shares the prize in physiology or medicine - and 8m Swedish kronor (£744,000) cash - with the Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, 50, who holds academic posts at the Universities of Kyoto and San Francisco.

The groundbreaking work has given scientists fresh insights into how cells and organisms develop, and may pave the way for radical advances in medicine that allow damaged or diseased tissues to be regenerated in the lab, or even inside patients' bodies.

Gurdon heard he might have won science's highest honour from a journalist on an Italian newspaper who called his lab at 7.30am on Monday morning, before the announcement had been made. An hour later, he received the official call from Stockholm.

Speaking to reporters in London, he said it was "very gratifying" to be recognised for what has been his life's work. "I hope it encourages others around to feel that science is a good thing to do. There's a danger of some of the best people saying 'I don't want a career in science'," he said.

Prior to the duo's research, many scientists believed adult cells were committed irreversibly to their specialist role, for example, as skin, brain or beating heart cells. Gurdon showed that essentially all cells contained the same genes, and so held all the information needed to make any tissue.

Building on Gurdon's work, Yamanaka developed a chemical cocktail to reprogram adult cells into more youthful states, from which they could grow into many other tissue types.

In a statement, the Nobel Assembly at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute in Sweden, said the scientists had "revolutionised our understanding of how cells and organisms develop".

According to his Eton schoolmaster, the 15-year-old Gurdon did not stand out as a potential scientist. Writing in 2006, Gurdon quoted a school report as saying: "I believe Gurdon has ideas about becoming a scientist; on his present showing this is quite ridiculous; if he can't learn simple biological facts, he would have no chance of doing the work of a specialist, and it would be a sheer waste of time, both on his part and of those who would have to teach him."

That year, Gurdon scored the lowest mark for biology in his year at Eton. "Out of 250 people, to come bottom of the bottom form is quite something, and in a way the most remarkable achievement I could have been said to make," he said.

read the rest here

Posted via email from schonken's posterous