John Gurdon
John Gurdon
Sir John Bertrand Gurdon FRS FMedSci, is an English developmental biologist. He is best known for his pioneering research in nuclear transplantation and cloning. He was awarded the Lasker Award in 2009. In 2012, he and Shinya Yamanaka were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that mature cells can be converted to stem cells...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth2 October 1933
african brand cell department frog graduate lecturer nuclear october south starting student suggested work zoology
As a brand new graduate student starting in October 1956, my supervisor Michail Fischberg, a lecturer in the Department of Zoology at Oxford, suggested that I should try to make somatic cell nuclear transplantation work in the South African frog Xenopus laevis.
embryonic hence purified techniques transfer whether wondered
I wondered whether the nuclear transfer techniques could be used to introduce purified macro-molecules into an egg, and hence into embryonic cells.
major repay treatment
I myself have been a major beneficiary of the view that no animal will more repay treatment that is kind and fair.
dating earliest example false known parts replaced skull teeth
The earliest example known to me of replaced body parts is exemplified by a Mayan skull dating back to 1400 BC. In this skull, false teeth made of stone had been implanted.
clone cloning dynasty famous guess mentally nice presumably religious takes time took
If you took some famous religious leader, for example, and said it would be nice to clone them indefinitely so you have a dynasty of leaders, my own guess would be that each time the cloning takes place, they would become more and more defective, presumably mentally defective and subsequently worse.
attempts chance clone humans mice might people point reasonable remember sheep somewhere
The first point to remember is that attempts to clone mice have actually been very unsuccessful for at least a decade. Sheep have been successful. So one asks, 'Where do humans lie?' Most people think they are somewhere between the two, but at least there's a reasonable chance they might be clone-able.
amazing master rather report roughly says worst
I have this rather amazing report which, roughly speaking, says I was the worst student the biology master had ever taught.
advances cells human involved parts prospect providing work
Shinya Yamanaka's work has involved mice and human cells, and advances the prospect of providing new cells or body parts for patients.
cannot route
I think that I cannot immediately see the route by which we should really understand memory and the workings of the brain.
doctors might
If you explain to a patient what can be done and what might be the downsides, let the patient choose; don't have ethicists, priests, or doctors say you may or may not have replacement cells.
attempts elastic extremely jelly layer surrounded unlike
My first attempts to transplant nuclei in Xenopus were completely unsuccessful, because the Xenopus egg, unlike those of other amphibians, is surrounded by an extremely elastic membrane and jelly layer that make penetration by a micropipette impossible.
aptitude attraction possibly
I must have been born with a strong attraction toward, and possibly even an aptitude for, doing things on a small scale.
accepted health human improve problems public relieve solving turned useful view widely
I take the view that anything you can do to relieve suffering or improve human health will usually be widely accepted by the public - that is to say, if cloning actually turned out to be solving some problems and was useful to people, I think it would be accepted.
advanced cell found normal nuclear starting transplant work year yield
Within one year of starting work, I had found that the nucleus of an endoderm cell from an advanced tadpole was able to yield some normal development up to the nuclear transplant tadpole stage.