USERN Congress 2016 Alumni: Meet Professor Sir John Gurdon

UNL: USERN Nobel Talk

Nuclear reprogramming as a route to cell replacement therapy

Sir John Gordon

Early work with frog eggs demonstrated the preservation of the genome in different cell-types.  It also showed that egg cytoplasm has the ability to reverse the differentiated state of the nucleus of a specialized cell.  Subsequent work has elucidated some of the mechanisms involved and the egg components responsible for this ‘rejuvenation’.  Current work involving the formation of replacement cells by the iPS route has the ability to prevent the loss of vision in humans due to age-related macular degeneration.