Knowra Shinya Yamanaka Shinya Yamanaka Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese physician and stem-cell researcher who shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing induced pluripotent stem cells.
Kazutoshi Takahashi : A Japanese stem-cell biologist who, with Shinya Yamanaka, identified factors that reprogram mouse cells into induced pluripotent stem cells. Takahashi was Yamanaka’s doctoral student and co-author of the landmark 2006 mouse-cell study.
Induced pluripotent stem cell : A differentiated cell reprogrammed into a state capable of producing many cell types. Yamanaka’s defining contribution was showing that a small set of factors could create these cells.
Nuclear transplantation : The transfer of a cell nucleus into an egg or other cell to investigate developmental potential. Earlier nuclear-transfer studies suggested that mature cells could be returned to an embryonic state.
Regenerative medicine : A field that develops ways to repair, replace, or regenerate damaged cells, tissues, and organs. Patient-derived pluripotent cells raised the prospect of producing replacement cells without using embryos.
John B. Gurdon : A British developmental biologist whose nuclear-transfer experiments showed that differentiated cells retain the genetic information needed to form an organism. Gurdon’s work established the principle of cellular reprogramming that Yamanaka later achieved with defined factors.
Yamanaka factors : The transcription factors OCT4, SOX2, KLF4, and c-MYC, commonly used to reprogram differentiated cells. These four factors produced induced pluripotency in Yamanaka and Takahashi’s initial mouse-cell experiments.
Somatic cell nuclear transfer : A technique that places a body-cell nucleus into an egg whose own nucleus has been removed. This technique demonstrated reprogramming through an egg, prompting the search for factors that could do it directly.
Disease modeling : The use of experimental systems to reproduce features of a disease and investigate its causes or treatments. Induced pluripotent cells can be made from patients and differentiated into disease-relevant cell types.
James Thomson : An American developmental biologist who derived the first human embryonic stem-cell lines in 1998. Thomson’s embryonic stem cells offered pluripotent cells directly; Yamanaka’s approach reprogrammed adult cells instead.
Cellular reprogramming : The alteration of a cell’s identity or developmental state by changing gene regulation. Yamanaka’s experiments made transcription-factor-driven reprogramming a practical route to pluripotency.
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