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SUMMARY:Reprogramming Animal Development - Professor Sir John Gurdon\, Cam
 bridge
DTSTART:20150116T173000Z
DTEND:20150116T183000Z
UID:TALK53595@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Janet Gibson
DESCRIPTION:In frog spawn in a pond\, each egg is able to turn itself into
  a tadpole and eventually a frog\, with no help or guidance from a parent 
 frog or from anything else in the pond. The single egg will have no resemb
 lance in any respect to what it will turn into. We now begin to understand
  how this extraordinary transformation takes place. \nEggs of frogs and ot
 her animals have another remarkable property. If a single cell from adult 
 skin is transplanted into an egg\, the skin cell will be made to go backwa
 rds in development to become an embryo cell from which another adult can b
 e formed (repeating the process of normal development). In this way it is 
 now possible to replace aged or diseased cells of an adult with rejuvenate
 d cells from their skin. This is opening the possibility of cell replaceme
 nt in humans.\n\nBiography\n\nJohn Gurdon was judged at school to be wholl
 y unsuited to science having come bottom in a class of 250 in Biology. How
 ever\, he was able to take up science at Oxford University\, where he also
  did a PhD. His work led to the concept that an egg has the ability to rej
 uvenate the nucleus of an adult cell\, and hence to the current prospect o
 f replacing aged and diseased cells in humans with new cells derived from 
 other body cells such as skin. In mid career he moved to Cambridge where h
 e still works in the University. He is an Honorary Fellow of Christ Church
 \, Oxford\, and of Magdalene and Churchill Colleges in Cambridge. He serve
 d as Master of Magdalene from 1995-2002. He has received a number of award
 s including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society (2003)\, the Lasker Awar
 d for Basic Medical Research (2009)\, and the Nobel Prize for Physiology o
 r Medicine (2012).\n
LOCATION:LMH\, Lady Mitchell Hall
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