John Gurdon of Cambridge University and Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University and the University of California, San Francisco, will share the 2009 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for their contributions to stem cell research -- specifically, for their work in reverting adult cells to an embryonic-like state, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation announced today (September 14).

John Gurdon (top) and Shinya Yamanaka (bottom) Image: The Lasker Foundation

A trio of researchers, Brian J. Druker of Oregon Health & Science University, Nicholas B. Lydon, formerly of Novartis, and Charles L. Sawyers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, will receive this year's Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award for the development of imatinib (Gleevec), a tyrosine kinase inhibitor that stunts cell growth in chronic myelogenous leukemia and other cancers.

The 2009 Mary Woodard Lasker Public Service Award will recognize New York mayor Michael Bloomberg for his policy decisions discouraging tobacco use and encouraging healthy eating.

Gurdon and Yamanaka's contributions "are fundamental and enormously influential to both the basic scientific research field and the public interests," molecular biologist Xiangru Xu of Yale University wrote in an email to The Scientist.

"It's a great and well deserved honor for Shinya and John," Harvard researcher Kevin Eggan said in an email. "They book end the field of reprogramming beautifully and are fully deserving."

Gurdon, who has published more than 200 articles, according to ISI, began his work on reprogramming DNA from adult frogs in the middle of the 20th century. By transferring the nucleus of adult skin or intestinal cells into an egg, Gurdon generated new tadpoles. His work "ignited" the stem cell field, according to the Lasker Foundation, eventually leading to the creation of Dolly -- the first-ever animal cloned from a differentiated mammalian adult cell.

In 2006, Yamanaka further advanced the field of nuclear reprogramming by using retroviruses to introduce four transcription factors to successfully regress skin cells from adult mice into pluripotent stem cells. Yamanaka's technique differed from Gurdon's in that it did not require the DNA to be transplanted into an egg, but induced pluripotency in the adult cell itself, creating so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from which many other tissue types could be generated. His 2006 Cell study in which he first described the technique in mice fibroblasts has been cited 950 times, according to ISI.

In the three years since that paper, numerous labs have churned out countless research publications, further refining the techniques for creating iPS cells and demonstrating the myriad clinical uses for such therapies.

"Gurdon's contribution has shaped the field for the past few decades, while Yamanaka's is destined to shape the field for decades to come," stem cell biologist George Daley of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Children's Hospital Boston said in an email to The Scientist.

The recipients will receive their awards on Friday, October 2, at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.

Check out videos of all the award winners on the Lasker Foundation's Web site.


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Stem cell reprogramming clues revealed
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