University of California San Francisco
Give to UCSF
<p>Since 1981, when UCSF’s Gail Martin, PhD, co-discovered embryonic stem cells in mice and coined the term embryonic stem cell, UCSF has been a key player in the stem cell field. Today, Shinya Yamanaka became the fifth UCSF scientist to win the Nobel Prize.</p>
<p>Shinya Yamanaka, MD, PhD, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes and a professor of anatomy at UCSF, has won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of how to transform ordinary adult skin cells into cells that are capable of developing into any cell in the human body.</p>
<p>Here are answers to frequently asked questions about induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, the type of cell that has been reprogrammed from an adult cell, such as a skin or blood cell.</p>
<p>Colleagues at the Gladstone and UCSF celebrated the news on Monday that Shinya Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discovery that has transformed the field of stem cell research.</p>
Scientists at the UCSF-affiliated Gladstone Institutes have revealed the precise order and timing of hundreds of genetic “switches” required to construct a fully functional heart from embryonic heart cells — providing new clues into the genetic basis for some forms of congenital heart disease.