Sir John Gurdon | |
|---|---|
 Sir John Gurdon in 2012 | |
| Born | John Bertrand Gurdon (1933-10-02)2 October 1933 (age 91) Dippenhall,Surrey, England |
| 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 andDevelopmental 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[1] |
| Doctoral students | Douglas A. Melton Edward M. De Robertis |
| Website | www |
Sir John Bertrand Gurdon FRS (born 2 October 1933) is a British developmentalbiologist, best known for his pioneering research innuclear transplantation[2][3][4] andcloning.[1][5][6][7]
Awarded theLasker Award in 2009, in 2012, he andShinya Yamanaka were jointly awarded theNobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that mature cells can be converted tostem cells.[8]
Gurdon attendedEdgeborough prep school beforeEton College, where he ranked last out of the 250 boys in his year group at biology, and was in the bottom set in every other science subject.[9] A schoolmaster wrote a report stating, "I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist; on his present showing this is quite ridiculous."[10][11][12] Gurdon explains it is the only document he ever framed; he also told areporter: "When you have problems like an experiment doesn't work, which often happens, it's nice to remind yourself that perhaps after all you are not so good at this job and the schoolmaster may have been right!"[13]
Gurdon went up toChrist Church, Oxford, to readclassics then switched tozoology, graduating asMA. For hisDPhildegree he studied nuclear transplantation in a frog species of the genusXenopus,[14][15] supervised by Dr Michail Fischberg atOxford University.[16] After pursuing further postdoctoral work atCaltech,[17] he returned to England where his early posts were in the Department of Zoology at theUniversity of Oxford (1962–71).[18]
Gurdon spent much of his research career at theMRCLaboratory of Molecular Biology (1971–83) and then in the Department of Zoology (1983–present). In 1989, he became a founding member of the Wellcome/CRC Institute for Cell Biology and Cancer (later Wellcome/CR UK) atCambridge, becoming its chairman until 2001. He served as amember of theNuffield Council on Bioethics 1991–1995, thenMaster ofMagdalene College, Cambridge, from 1995 to 2002.
Gurdon married Jean Elizabeth Margaret Curtis, by whom he has a son and a daughter.[19]
In 1958, Gurdon, then at theUniversity of Oxford, successfullycloned a frog using intactnuclei from the somatic cells of aXenopus tadpole.[21][22] This work was an important extension of work ofBriggs andKing in 1952 on transplanting nuclei from embryonicblastula cells[23] and the successful induction of polyploidy in thestickleback,Gasterosteus aculatus, in 1956 byHar Swarup reported inNature.[24] At that time he could not conclusively show that the transplanted nuclei derived from a fully differentiated cell. This was finally shown in 1975 by a group working at theBasel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland.[25] They transplanted a nucleus from an antibody-producing lymphocyte (proof that it was fully differentiated) into an enucleated egg and obtained living tadpoles.
Gurdon's experiments captured the attention of the scientific community as it altered the notion of development and the tools and techniques he developed for nuclear transfer are still used today. The term clone[26] (from the ancient Greek wordκλών (klōn, "twig")) had already been in use since the beginning of the 20th century in reference to plants. In 1963 the British biologistJ. B. S. Haldane, in describing Gurdon's results, became one of the first to use the word "clone" in reference to animals.
Gurdon and colleagues also pioneered the use ofXenopus (genus of highly aquatic frog) eggs and oocytes to translate microinjectedmessenger RNA molecules,[27] a technique which has been widely used to identify the proteins encoded and to study their function.
Gurdon's recent research has focused on analysing intercellular signalling factors involved incell differentiation, and on elucidating the mechanisms involved inreprogramming the nucleus in transplantation experiments, including the role of histone variants,[28][29] anddemethylation of the transplanted DNA.[30]
Gurdon has stated that he is politically "middle of the road", and religiously agnostic because "there is no scientific proof either way". During his time asMaster of Magdalene, Gurdon caused some controversy by suggesting thatFellows might occasionally be allowed to deliver "an address on anything they would like to talk about" incollegechapel services.[31] In an interview with EWTN.com, Gurdon declared "I'm what you might call liberal-minded. I'm not a Roman Catholic. I'm a Christian, of the Church of England."[32]
Gurdon was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)in 1971, and appointedKnight Bachelor in the1995 Birthday Honours.
Elected to theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978,[33] the United StatesNational Academy of Sciences in 1980,[34] and theAmerican Philosophical Society in 1983, since 2005 he has been an Honorary Member of theAmerican Association of Anatomists.[35]
In 2004, theWellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Institute for Cell Biology and Cancer was renamed theGurdon Institute[36] in his honour. He was awarded the 2009 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award and in 2014 delivered theHarveian Oration at theRoyal College of Physicians.[37] In 2017, Gurdon received the Golden Plate Award of theAmerican Academy of Achievement.[38] AFellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) andFellow of the Zoological Society (FZS), he has received honorary doctorates includingHon DSc (Oxon) andHon ScD (Cantab) as well as many otherawards and medals.[17]
In 1989 he was awarded theWolf Prize in Medicine “for his introduction of the xenopus oocyte into molecular biology and his demonstration that the nucleus of a differentiated cell and of the egg differ in expression but not in the content of genetic material”.
In 2012, Gurdon was awarded, jointly withShinya Yamanaka, theNobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine"for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to becomepluripotent".[39] His Nobel Lecture was called "The Egg and the Nucleus: A Battle for Supremacy".
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Fullerian Professor of Physiology 1985–1991 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Master ofMagdalene College, Cambridge 1994–2002 | Succeeded by |
