Sir John Gurdon | Academy of Achievement

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biology teacher pronounced him “unsuited” for the study of science, and he received no further instruction in the subject until after graduation, when he crammed biology to win admission to the Department of Zoology at Oxford. As a young Ph.D. candidate, his experiments transferring nuclei from the cells of tadpoles to those of fertilized frog embryos demonstrated for the first time that every cell of a living creature contains the entire genome. His discovery has proved to be of the utmost significance as science learns to revert adult cells to the embryonic stem cell state. Today, stem cell research offers enormous possibilities for the future of medicine, not least for the war on cancer. Gurdon went on to head the Cell Biology Division at Cambridge and to chair Wellcome’s cancer research arm, known today as the Gurdon Institute. Sir John’s achievements have been recognized with the highest honors in medical science, including the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine — all because he ignored the judgment of one biology teacher long ago."/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Sir John Gurdon | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<div class="page" title="Page 38"> <div class="layoutArea"> <div class="column"> When John Gurdon was 15, his biology teacher pronounced him “unsuited” for the study of science, and he received no further instruction in the subject until after graduation, when he crammed biology to win admission to the Department of Zoology at Oxford. As a young Ph.D. candidate, his experiments transferring nuclei from the cells of tadpoles to those of fertilized frog embryos demonstrated for the first time that every cell of a living creature contains the entire genome. His discovery has proved to be of the utmost significance as science learns to revert adult cells to the embryonic stem cell state. Today, stem cell research offers enormous possibilities for the future of medicine, not least for the war on cancer. Gurdon went on to head the Cell Biology Division at Cambridge and to chair Wellcome’s cancer research arm, known today as the Gurdon Institute. Sir John’s achievements have been recognized with the highest honors in medical science, including the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine — all because he ignored the judgment of one biology teacher long ago. </div> </div> </div>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2019-06-17T15:07:01+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/gurdon-Feature-Image-3.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","contentUrl":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/gurdon-Feature-Image-3.jpg","contentUrl":"/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/gurdon-Feature-Image-3.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/","name":"Sir John Gurdon | Academy of Achievement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2018-10-31T00:20:49+00:00","dateModified":"2019-06-17T15:07:01+00:00","description":"When John Gurdon was 15, his biology teacher pronounced him \u201cunsuited\u201d for the study of science, and he received no further instruction in the subject until after graduation, when he crammed biology to win admission to the Department of Zoology at Oxford. As a young Ph.D. candidate, his experiments transferring nuclei from the cells of tadpoles to those of fertilized frog embryos demonstrated for the first time that every cell of a living creature contains the entire genome. His discovery has proved to be of the utmost significance as science learns to revert adult cells to the embryonic stem cell state. Today, stem cell research offers enormous possibilities for the future of medicine, not least for the war on cancer. Gurdon went on to head the Cell Biology Division at Cambridge and to chair Wellcome\u2019s cancer research arm, known today as the Gurdon Institute. 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/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/gurdon-Feature-Image-3.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Sir John Gurdon</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Nobel Prize in Medicine</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-58690 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-biologist"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">If you’re at school and you learned Ancient Greek, the best you can possibly do is to be as good as other people who already learned it. You’re merely going back. Nothing new about that at all. And that’s true of many subjects. So I think there’s a total fascination in advancing human knowledge.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Godfather of Cloning</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> October 2, 1933 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>John Gurdon was born in Dippenhall, Surrey, and grew up on the border of Surrey and Hampshire in southern England. His father, a retired banker, came from a family with a long history of public service. Both of his parents devoted much of their time to volunteer service in education. The family home was surrounded by open fields and ponds, and from an early age, John Gurdon collected and studied plants and wildlife.</p> <figure id="attachment_58727" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58727" style="width: 618px" class="wp-caption alignright"><noscript><img class="wp-image-58727 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/side-by-side-family-and-gurdon.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-58727 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="618" height="253" data-sizes="(max-width: 618px) 100vw, 618px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/side-by-side-family-and-gurdon.jpg 618w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/side-by-side-family-and-gurdon-380x156.jpg 380w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/side-by-side-family-and-gurdon.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58727" class="wp-caption-text">Left: 1960s, from left to right, Phil Gurdon (cousin); Elsie Marjorie Gurdon (mother); William Nathaniel Gurdon (father); Caroline Thompson (sister); and John Gurdon. Right: 1971, John Gurdon at the University of Cambridge.</figcaption></figure> <p>He was especially fascinated by moths and butterflies and enjoyed raising caterpillars and observing their metamorphoses. He attended private schools and, at age 13, was sent to Eton. Bullied by the older boys, he struggled to excel on the squash court and became captain of the school team. His academic experience was less happy.  Although he continued to raise moths and butterflies on his own, his biology teacher formed such a low opinion of his abilities that, at age 15, he was removed from all science classes and assigned to study ancient and modern languages, subjects in which he had little interest.</p> <figure id="attachment_58735" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58735" style="width: 380px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="size-medium wp-image-58735 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GURDON-GROUP-AT-LABORATORY-OF-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY-CAMBRIDGE-1980-380x275.png"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-58735 lazyload" alt="" width="380" height="275" data-sizes="(max-width: 380px) 100vw, 380px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GURDON-GROUP-AT-LABORATORY-OF-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY-CAMBRIDGE-1980-380x275.png 380w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GURDON-GROUP-AT-LABORATORY-OF-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY-CAMBRIDGE-1980-760x550.png 760w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GURDON-GROUP-AT-LABORATORY-OF-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY-CAMBRIDGE-1980.png 1160w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GURDON-GROUP-AT-LABORATORY-OF-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY-CAMBRIDGE-1980-380x275.png"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58735" class="wp-caption-text">1980: John Gurdon and the Gurdon Group at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge, England. After Gurdon’s post at the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford (1962–71), he was offered a position at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at University of Cambridge (1971–83). (Courtesy of John Gurdon)</figcaption></figure> <p>After taking entrance examinations in Latin and Greek, he was admitted to Oxford University on condition that he didn’t study those subjects, but he was also not accepted for the zoology program. His parents arranged for him to take a year off to study the sciences with a private tutor. He spent the year cramming all of the physics, chemistry, and biology he had missed at Eton. After passing a second set of entrance exams, he was admitted to Oxford as a zoology student.</p> <p>While still an undergraduate, Gurdon discovered a previously unknown species of fly in Oxford’s Wytham Woods, a habitat that was supposedly the specialty of the university’s professor of entomology. After completing his undergraduate degree in zoology, Gurdon hoped to pursue his interest in Lepidoptera, but his application for the doctoral program in entomology was rejected, perhaps because the professor of entomology resented Gurdon’s intrusion into his domain.</p> <figure id="attachment_58747" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58747" style="width: 3072px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-58747 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-2003-1898262d-SHUTTERSTOCK-JOHN-GURDON.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-58747 lazyload" alt="" width="3072" height="2048" data-sizes="(max-width: 3072px) 100vw, 3072px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-2003-1898262d-SHUTTERSTOCK-JOHN-GURDON.jpg 3072w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-2003-1898262d-SHUTTERSTOCK-JOHN-GURDON-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-2003-1898262d-SHUTTERSTOCK-JOHN-GURDON-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-2003-1898262d-SHUTTERSTOCK-JOHN-GURDON.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58747" class="wp-caption-text">July 2003: Professor Sir John Gurdon working in his lab at Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Institute. In 1989, Gurdon and his close colleague Ronald Laskey set up a lab together and won funding to establish the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research Campaign Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology. (Photo by Jonathan Player)</figcaption></figure> <p>Instead, Gurdon undertook doctoral studies in developmental biology under the supervision of Dr. Michael Fischberg. At the time, one of the great questions in developmental biology was whether the specialized cells of a given organism, constituting its separate organs and tissues, contained only the genetic information of that particular organ. Many scientists had speculated about the possibility of transferring the nucleus of one cell into a cell of a different type, to determine if the genetic information contained in the nucleus was specific to the type of cell from which it was removed. The first attempts at such experiments led their authors to assert that once cells differentiated into different types, they no longer contained the complete genome. There the matter stood in 1956.</p> <figure id="attachment_58852" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58852" style="width: 1866px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-58852 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_978437934496.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-58852 lazyload" alt="" width="1866" height="1248" data-sizes="(max-width: 1866px) 100vw, 1866px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_978437934496.jpg 1866w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_978437934496-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_978437934496-760x508.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_978437934496.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58852" class="wp-caption-text">2008: From left to right, stem cell pioneer Kyoto University professor Shinya Yamanaka and British researchers Ian Wilmut and Sir John B. Gurdon joining hands at a symposium in Tokyo. In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka discovered a method to transform skin cells of mice to pluripotent stem cells using a virus to introduce four genes. Pluripotent stem cells have the ability to develop into other types of cells. Yamanaka, along with Gurdon, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2012 for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent. This concept is known as induced pluripotent stem cells. Ian Wilmut is an embryologist best known as the leader of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal from an adult somatic cell, a lamb named Dolly. (Kyodo)</figcaption></figure> <p>Professor Fischberg encouraged John Gurdon to explore the question further, by pursuing nucleus transfer with the <em>Xenopus</em>, an aquatic African frog. Gurdon’s first attempts were failures because he could not remove the original nucleus from the <em>Xenopus</em> egg cell. He eventually learned that the correct frequency of ultraviolet light would both damage the original nucleus and soften the wall of the cell sufficiently for him to insert the new nucleus. By 1958, he was producing mature frogs from egg cells with transplanted nuclei, but he had not yet proved conclusively that the frogs born from the altered eggs were the product of the new nucleus rather than the old.</p> <figure id="attachment_58777" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58777" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-58777 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280-2012-GettyImages-153657882.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-58777 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1548" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280-2012-GettyImages-153657882.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280-2012-GettyImages-153657882-380x258.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280-2012-GettyImages-153657882-760x516.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280-2012-GettyImages-153657882.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58777" class="wp-caption-text">October 8, 2012: Sir John B. Gurdon talks to reporters in London, England after members of the Nobel Committee announced that Sir John and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan had both been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine “for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.” (Peter Macdiarmid/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>Gurdon continued his work, receiving his doctorate in 1960, but his hypothesis that the nucleus of a specialized cell contains the complete genome was not accepted by the international community of developmental biologists. He undertook postgraduate research at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and visited many of the principal developmental biology laboratories of the United States. When his mentor, Professor Fischberg, accepted an offer in Geneva, Gurdon was invited to assume Fischberg’s former position at Oxford.</p> <figure id="attachment_58776" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58776" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-58776 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280GettyImages-153649234.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-58776 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1709" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280GettyImages-153649234.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280GettyImages-153649234-380x285.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280GettyImages-153649234-760x570.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280GettyImages-153649234.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58776" class="wp-caption-text">October 8, 2012: Sir John Gurdon’s work is displayed during a press conference to announce the Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology at the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and Sir John B. Gurdon of Britain won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their quite different work — more than 40 years apart — on reprogramming somatic cells to pluripotent stem cells. Gurdon’s fundamental experiments on nuclear transplantations into frog oocytes were done while a graduate student in the Zoology Department at Oxford, in the late 1950s. In 1962, Gurdon removed the nucleus of a fertilized egg cell from a frog and replaced it with the nucleus of a cell taken from a tadpole’s intestine. This modified egg cell grew into a new frog, proving that the mature cell still contained the genetic information needed to form all types of cells. (Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>By this time, Gurdon had produced numerous mature frogs using nuclei taken from the somatic cells of swimming tadpoles. In 1962, Gurdon transferred the nucleus from an intestinal cell of a tadpole into an unfertilized frog’s egg.  The egg with the replaced nucleus matured into a complete tadpole.   Gurdon had sought out donor frogs with visible mutations to demonstrate that the new frogs were in fact descended from the donor tadpole. The tadpole he selected for a particularly dramatic experiment was an albino, but the egg came from a dark-colored frog. Photographs of the dark frog and her albino progeny were widely published, and Gurdon’s experiment attracted intense attention from his colleagues. The word “clone” was applied to an animal, rather than a plant, for the first time in a description of Gurdon’s work written by the British biologist J. B. S. Haldane.</p> <figure id="attachment_58800" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58800" style="width: 1548px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-58800 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-158096124.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-58800 lazyload" alt="" width="1548" height="2304" data-sizes="(max-width: 1548px) 100vw, 1548px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-158096124.jpg 1548w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-158096124-255x380.jpg 255w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-158096124-511x760.jpg 511w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-158096124.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58800" class="wp-caption-text">December 10, 2012: His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden presenting a diploma and medal to Sir John B. Gurdon of England during the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony at Stockholm Concert Hall. (© Jonathan Nackstrand)</figcaption></figure> <p>The tools and techniques Gurdon pioneered have remained in use for nuclear transfer ever since. Although its implications would not become fully apparent for many years, his experiments and their many subsequent repetitions demonstrated conclusively that the nucleus of any cell in a creature’s body contains the creature’s entire genetic information.  This insight underlies all subsequent research in cell replacement and stem cell therapy.</p> <p>As a junior lecturer at Oxford, John Gurdon met Jean Elizabeth Margaret Curtis, daughter of a local businessman, and the two married and raised two children.  Gurdon remained a lecturer in the Zoology Department for the next nine years, but in 1971, he was offered a laboratory at Cambridge, to be funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC).  His wife was attached to their home in Oxford, but the university could not offer him research facilities comparable to those now available at Cambridge, and the Gurdon family made the move. The same year, Gurdon was named a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1983 he moved from Cambridge’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology to the Department of Zoology. Within a few years of his arrival at Cambridge, he was appointed  to a senior position in Developmental Biology in Zoology.</p> <figure id="attachment_58763" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58763" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-58763 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2017-symposium-LondonSummit_0482.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-58763 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2017-symposium-LondonSummit_0482.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2017-symposium-LondonSummit_0482-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2017-symposium-LondonSummit_0482-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2017-symposium-LondonSummit_0482.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58763" class="wp-caption-text">Academy guest of honor Sir John B. Gurdon, discussing his work in the fields of cell nucleus transplantation and cloning with delegates during a symposium at the 2017 International Achievement Summit at Claridge’s Hotel.</figcaption></figure> <p>As the significance of his work became better known, he was showered with awards and honors: the William Bate Hardy Prize in 1984, the Royal Medal in 1985, the International Prize for Biology in 1987, the Wolf Prize in Medicine in 1989.  He was one of the founding members of the Wellcome/CRC Institute for Cell Biology and Cancer, and chaired the institute until 2001. From 1994 to 2002, he served as Master of Magdalene College, one of the historic constituent colleges of the university, while continuing his research. In 1995, John Gurdon was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to British science; in 2004, the Wellcome Trust Cancer Research Institute was renamed the Gurdon Institute; in 2009, he received the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research; in 2012, he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology.</p> <figure id="attachment_58761" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58761" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-58761 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2290-award-LondonSummit_0694.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-58761 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2290-award-LondonSummit_0694.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2290-award-LondonSummit_0694-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2290-award-LondonSummit_0694-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2290-award-LondonSummit_0694.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58761" class="wp-caption-text">2017: Sir John Gurdon, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, receives the American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award from Awards Council member Dr. Peter Agre, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, during the Banquet of the Golden Plate gala ceremonies at the International Achievement Summit in Mayfair, London.</figcaption></figure> <p>Over the years, Gurdon and his colleagues continued their work with <em>Xenopus</em>, employing its eggs and oocytes to study the proteins’ encoded RNA molecules.  His recent research has dealt with the signaling factors responsible for cell differentiation.  His experimental work with nucleus transplantation includes reprogramming the nucleus in transplanted DNA. Outside of his laboratory, Sir John has enjoyed an active outdoor life, playing squash and tennis, skiing, skating, and mountain climbing.  Sir John and Lady Gurdon still live in Cambridge, where Sir John continues his research. Well into his 80s, he has no plans to retire.</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2017 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.biologist">Biologist</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> October 2, 1933 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <div class="page" title="Page 38"> <div class="layoutArea"> <div class="column"> <p>When John Gurdon was 15, his biology teacher pronounced him “unsuited” for the study of science, and he received no further instruction in the subject until after graduation, when he crammed biology to win admission to the Department of Zoology at Oxford.</p> <p>As a young Ph.D. candidate, his experiments transferring nuclei from the cells of tadpoles to those of fertilized frog embryos demonstrated for the first time that every cell of a living creature contains the entire genome. His discovery has proved to be of the utmost significance as science learns to revert adult cells to the embryonic stem cell state. Today, stem cell research offers enormous possibilities for the future of medicine, not least for the war on cancer.</p> <p>Gurdon went on to head the Cell Biology Division at Cambridge and to chair Wellcome’s cancer research arm, known today as the Gurdon Institute. Sir John’s achievements have been recognized with the highest honors in medical science, including the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the 2012 Nobel Prize in Medicine — all because he ignored the judgment of one biology teacher long ago.</p> </div> </div> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/1UA1PpR8UC8?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_13_19_15.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_13_19_15.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Godfather of Cloning</h2> <div class="sans-2">London, England</div> <div class="sans-2">October 17, 2017</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Let’s start by asking you about the research you did that resulted in your Nobel Prize. If you could describe it in layman’s terms, what is it that you found out?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Yes. That you can rejuvenate an adult cell back to an embryo cell. In a sentence, that’s what that is.</p> <p><strong>To put it in context, what did we know about cells before that? </strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/b8VKLHxdMkY?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_10_51_02.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_10_51_02.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Sir John Gurdon: I think I should explain that when I was doing this work, we did not know whether all the cells of the body have the same genes. Genes are important in deciding how our cells function. And it was unclear — it has been for thousands of years — whether cells in the body all have the same genes or whether, for example, the brain cells would have different genes from skin cells. One idea was that the reason brain cells are different from skin is because their genes are different. Actually, it turns out that they all have the same genes. This was not known, and I was put onto the project of trying to do experiments to find out whether different kinds of cells all have the same genes or they don’t. It’s a fairly clear question.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>For a long time, they said the best explanation for why the brain is like it is and different from heart and different from the skin is that the genes in these cells are different.  And it was a famous man called Mendel who first discovered the principle that there are things like genes which determine how cells behave.  And that was fundamental in around 1860. And so people knew that genes were important and had a lot to do with the way cells function. But it’s still interesting — in the 1950s, even then, we did not know whether a skin cell had the same genes as a brain cell or they did not.  So does that question make sense?</p> <figure id="attachment_58866" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58866" style="width: 2048px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-58866 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-1898262h.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-58866 lazyload" alt="" width="2048" height="3072" data-sizes="(max-width: 2048px) 100vw, 2048px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-1898262h.jpg 2048w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-1898262h-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-1898262h-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-1898262h.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58866" class="wp-caption-text">July 23, 2003: Professor Sir John Gurdon working in his lab at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Institute. Professor Gurdon was one of a group of scientists who co-founded the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research Campaign Institute in Cambridge in 1991, which was subsequently renamed the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research Gurdon Institute. He was the institute’s director until 2001 when he stepped down. (Jonathan Player/REX/Shutterstock)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>It does. What made you start to look for an experiment to find out the opposite.  What made you ask the question?  </strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Well, that was the question we asked.  The question is how did we hope to answer the question.  That was the next question, the next point.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/4t374yAiCzc?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_07_35_11.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_07_35_11.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>People as early as 1880 had envisioned an experiment where you took the nucleus, with its genes, from one cell and put it into another cell, and asked if the cell that received the new nucleus would then change. So if you could do this, you would take the nucleus out of, say, a skin cell and put it into a brain cell and see if the brain cell became a skin cell — that sort of concept.</p> <p>Of course, to do that, you have to take away the nucleus from the brain cell. So you replace. It’s a nuclear replacement experiment. Technically, that’s difficult to do, so people realized that the best way to do that is to use the egg, which is a large cell, and it’s easier to put a nucleus into the egg or to take the chromosomes from an egg. So the concept of how to go about this problem was fairly clear.</p> <p>And the idea was that if you took the nucleus from an adult cell — or specialized cell — and put it into the egg, and took away the nucleus or chromosomes of the egg, you can ask the question whether this incoming nucleus now makes the whole egg form skin or brain, whatever you start with, or whether the egg changes it and makes it go back to the beginning again and behave like the nucleus or chromosomes of the egg.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_58867" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58867" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-58867 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_538412715404.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-58867 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1247" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_538412715404.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_538412715404-380x208.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_538412715404-760x416.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_538412715404.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58867" class="wp-caption-text">December 6, 2012: Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and Sir John Gurdon of Britain speak during a press conference at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Yamanaka and Gurdon jointly won the Nobel Prize in Medicine “for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.” (The Yomiuri Shimbun/AP Images)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>We’ve heard that you were an awful student when you started studying science in high school. Is that true?  </strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: The transition from being a bad student?  Yes. You mean that?  Yes, I was given this extremely damaging report.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/C5koeCfjoTE?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_06_51_19.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_06_51_19.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>The fact is, I was in a class of 250 students of the same stage, and I was in the bottom group. There were 22 such classes, and I was in the least able ones. I wasn’t really good at other work, and I came bottom of that one. I mean I was the worst out of 250 in biology. So the biology master teacher said, “Well, this person’s hopeless. There’s no question of him trying to make a career in science because he’s just no good at that.” So that meant I was taken away from that subject of science all the rest of my school time and was put into Ancient Greek and Latin, not because I was thought to be particularly good at that, but they had too many teachers and had to give them something to do. So the people who were — I know they said of me, “He has no ability to undertake any subject in depth, so we’ll put him in the bottom and put him into the sort of dumping class” of people who were not able to manage anything much. That’s how it happened.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>So you were forced to drop science. </strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Yes, I was.</p> <p><strong>An area that you loved. </strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Yes.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/woStH-7Nwg0?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_06_21_04.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_06_21_04.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I was taken off it immediately, after only one term, one semester. At that time, you only started science at age 15. That’s the age I was. And the teacher said, “Well, we’ve got to put him in some direction; at least we’ll get rid of the ones where he’s no good.” And that was how that happened. But I think it was really my parents who could see that what I actually was interested in was biological things, not Ancient Greek. All my holiday time, I would spend collecting insects and growing plants and that sort of thing. And I never opened an Ancient Greek book, ever, in the holiday time, but I had lots of books on insects, and that sort of thing, and plants.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z9P1z92qWmM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_05_25_06.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_05_25_06.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>The school said, “We’re not going to teach him science. He’s no good at that, so we’ll take him off that.” My parents couldn’t do much about that. I mean the school says, “We’re going to teach you what we think we can,” and it was they who got me back into it. When I finished my school time at a fee-paying school, they then said, “We’ll give you a year in which to try and get you back into science,” having had to give it up. I’m very sorry for them. I mean all this money was almost completely wasted. The only good thing is that, in retrospect, the teacher was such a bad teacher that I was spared being badly taught for three more years at school. Other people I’ve met since were taught by this teacher, and they all said he was terrible. I mean most of the time he was wrong in what he said — factually wrong, in that he’d teach the wrong information. So it was sort of a relief to be no longer under the control of someone who wasn’t a good teacher.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/asx30QgjOq8?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_06_23_18.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_06_23_18.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>My mother, in particular, had seen what I spent all my time doing, and she made a lot of efforts to get me interviewed by the professor of zoology at Oxford, who she happened to know. And she said to him, “What this boy’s really interested in is biological sciences. Do you think you could accept him to do a biological degree?” And all he could do was to say, “Well, if you take a year off from schoolwork and really work hard at science and pass the elementary exams, then we could take him.”</p> <p>So I had to take a year off from my expensive school to switch completely to learning elementary science. And they said, “Well, if you pass those exams, you can go on.” And luckily, I did pass them. But it was hard work. It was what they call a crammer. You just spend day after day being crammed with information. And then, at the end of all that, they give you an exam and ask you questions, and you have to learn the answers.</p> <p>It was really the sort of science that we don’t like now. It was just learning facts. There was no analysis to it. And the natural mind says, “Why does this happen?” I was very keen on growing insects — caterpillars that grow into moths — and a good question would have been, “Why does that happen?” “How do they do it?” But that wasn’t the point. You just had to learn the name of the insect, and they’d test you on that. And then when that’s all — when the memory test has been done, you’re then allowed to begin to ask more interesting questions of mechanisms. So that was how I survived. It wouldn’t have been possible now. If you had no elementary knowledge of biology at age 18, there is almost no hope of being able to catch up and switch.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_58870" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58870" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-58870 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-AP_533154795266.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-58870 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-AP_533154795266.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-AP_533154795266-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-AP_533154795266-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-AP_533154795266.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58870" class="wp-caption-text">December 10, 2012: The Nobel Prize Laureate for Physiology or Medicine, Sir John B. Gurdon, right, rejoining the other Nobel Laureates after receiving his Nobel medal and diploma from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf, during the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall in Stockholm. (Photo by AP Photo and Matt Dunham)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>So you were determined to continue with science even though you’d been assigned to study the classics.  Was this because you saw science as forward-looking and classics as looking back?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Well yes, I do believe that.  Yes.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pd2Pwd19Uys?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_02_16_03.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_02_16_03.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/passion/">Passion</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>The view I took was that, if at school, you learned Ancient Greek, the best you can possibly do is to be as good as other people who already learned it. You’re merely going back; at best, you stay where we are. There’s nothing new about that at all. And that would be true of many subjects. So I think there’s a total fascination in advancing human knowledge and seeing what can be done with it.</p> <p>So I’ve always taken that — I would take it now. I would say, people who choose to study Greek languages or any other kind of languages, already people know how to speak those languages — nothing new. Whatever language you learn, there are people who speak it perfectly, so you’re just trying to do as well as they do — nothing novel or challenging, except they’re just memory.</p> <p>And many subjects in the arts field are a bit like that — even law. Mainly, what you do in law is to learn the principles that previous lawyers have established. They say, “Under these circumstances, this is the judgment that should be made.” So you learn from them to try and make these decisions which they know how to make. There’s nothing novel, nothing challenging, in my view, really, about that. So I’m rather a diehard at science in that sense.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>After the hard time you’d had before, how did things go when you got to university?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/NBIynh7miBU?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_32_58_17.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_32_58_17.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I had got into the biology course at Oxford University, and I had problems with that because a lot of that was just memory. You learn the names of things. But in the last year, I somehow got the idea of how to answer these exams. And that got me a good degree. Then the person who I worked under — I’d applied, you see, at that point, to do a Ph.D. in entomology because I was interested in insects. Luckily, in retrospect, the professor rejected me. That was quite right because he wasn’t a very good entomologist anyway. But the person who took me on was someone in a different subject, and he actually said to me, would I be interested in doing a Ph.D. under him. And that was a huge blessing. He was extremely good as a mentor. I owe an enormous amount to him. He sort of picked me out of the rubbish bin, more or less, and said, “You can come and do your Ph.D. with me.” With him. So that was an enormous blessing.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_58868" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58868" style="width: 2823px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-58868 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0476.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-58868 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2823" height="2258" data-sizes="(max-width: 2823px) 100vw, 2823px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0476.jpg 2823w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0476-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0476-760x608.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_0476.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58868" class="wp-caption-text">October 2017: Guest of honor Sir John B. Gurdon, addressing Academy delegates during a symposium at the American Academy of Achievement’s 52nd annual International Achievement Summit at Claridge’s in London.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>What was his name?  </strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: He has a Swiss name, (Michael) Fischberg.  When you trace him back, his mentor was another Swiss whose mentor was another one and back. That goes back to a famous man in direct lineage called (Hans) Spemann, who is the only person in this field who got a Nobel Prize.  So about four science generations downwards, I was able to pick up something from that lineage.</p> <p><strong>What did Professor Fischberg teach you that made you a better scientist?  </strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Kej_k3_wOZE?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_14_34_18.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_14_34_18.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Sir John Gurdon: He (Professor Michael Fischberg) gave me free choice. He said, “Here’s a problem for you, and this is how you might try to do it. Why don’t you try?” And as often happens, it didn’t work for a while. But he kept saying, “Well, try changing this, or try something different.” And suddenly, it suddenly worked. Not very obviously why, but it did. And so from then on, he was extremely enthusiastic. He used to say, “This is fantastic! Now, this is the way you should go.” And he left me entirely to myself. I mean he didn’t tell me how to do experiments. He just said, “This is what you should aim for, and what you’re doing is going very well, so carry on.” That was a very free way of teaching.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>What he put me onto was this question that we started talking about.  That is to say, “Do all cells have the same genes?”  So he could see that was a crucial question.  He was aware of people who had tried to do it and didn’t succeed.  So he said, “It’s worth doing it a different way. Try different ways of doing it and see what happens.”  Nowadays, it would be more normal for a supervisor or mentor to say, “This is what you should do.  Try doing the following, the following way.”  He didn’t. He said, “The problem is very important, and just try anything you can think of that might work.”  It was a very relaxed way of doing it.</p> <figure id="attachment_58869" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-58869" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-58869 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_1270.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-58869 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="3420" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_1270.jpg 2280w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_1270-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20210905051710im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_1270-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_1270.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-58869" class="wp-caption-text">2017: Sir John Gurdon with fellow Academy members in the White Drawing Room at Waddesdon Manor during an outing at the International Achievement Summit held in Oxfordshire. Lord Jacob Rothschild, a philanthropist and arts patron, hosted Academy members and spouses to an intimate luncheon in the White Drawing Room, one of Waddesdon’s dining rooms, which houses a large collection of 18th-century French furniture and British portraits.</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>At this point, you’ve published around 350 scientific papers. Can you tell us about the first one?  We’ve talked a lot about perseverance, but it sounds like the first one had a lot to do with luck.</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: The first one actually was the discovery of a new insect.  I don’t know whether that’s what you knew.  Yes, the story of that is quite amusing.</p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210905051710if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/pNbf-AJ5Sro?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=906&end=1022&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_13_19_15.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Gurdon-Sir-John-2017-MasterEdit.00_13_19_15.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I was in Oxford, and they have a rather nice sort of wild area reservation where — you get permission, you can go out there and walk, and I used to go out and collect insects. I went out, one cold March day, with a net, and there were no butterflies or moths, but some fly came by, so I caught the fly and thought, “Well, I must find out what this fly is.” So I got all the necessary books, and it didn’t fit at all. So I went on and on, and it wasn’t actually a fly, it was more like a bee. It didn’t matter. I caught it, and I went through all these books, and it just didn’t fit. Every time they said, “You’ll find that it now has different kinds of legs,” well, it didn’t. It just didn’t agree at all.</p> <p>So I thought, “I can’t just give up.” So I went to this entomology department, and they said, “We don’t know what it is. You’d better go up to the Natural History Museum and ask them what it is.” So I got in touch with people there, in London, and went along, and the man said, “It’s very odd. This thing has never been seen in this country before. Most extraordinary thing.” And that became a little paper, and it was a little kind of sawfly. And the embarrassing thing is that this place I went to was where the professor of entomology was working, and his main project was to identify all the insects that he could find in that place. And here was this student who just spent one Saturday afternoon and caught something that was of immense interest and which he had never noticed. So that is probably one good reason why he didn’t accept to have me as a Ph.D. student. So it was a curious thing. That was my first publication. Nothing to do with what I later did.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Let’s talk about the beginning of your passion for science. You said you always loved plants and insects. Can you tell us how you became interested in the natural world?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Even at a very young age, it was amazing to me that you could take a seed from a plant and somehow that grew into a plant. Even more striking, as a natural fact, is what we now call frogspawn. When you go to ponds, you find these black eggs — they are actually — and they turn into a tadpole. Now, how do they know how to do that? The mother can’t teach them. The mother isn’t there anymore. She lays them and disappears. No one else comes along to tell them how to do it. Somehow they know how to do that. That has always been a fascinating problem to me, to think, “How can an egg know how to turn into a tadpole or a frog?”</p> <p><strong>Do you remember at what age you first had these thoughts and questions?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: When I was under ten — at the age of about seven or eight — I was so keen on plants that I was given a piece of our garden as my own, to plant whatever I wanted and grow it. Then that turned into looking at butterflies; and hence, growing butterflies; and hence, asking the question of how could it possibly happen. So gradually, the questions kind of emerged. When you think, at a young age, many younger people ask how or why does something happen. That’s a good sign that they are sufficiently interested to pursue the problem, the subject.</p> <p>And if you’re being drafted! My father thought that I’d do so bad at school, I’d have to go into the army. That’s the sort of thing you can do if you’re thought not to be particularly motivated. I hated any thought of the army, so I was desperate not to get into that. Then he said, “Well, maybe we’ll put you into a London solicitor’s firm where you can shuffle paper.” That wasn’t very interesting to me. So it was really my mother who took the decision to try and get me into science because everything I did at home was all to do with plants and insects.</p> <p><strong>Where were you when you were doing this? Did you grow up in the country?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Yes. Fairly country — not totally remote country; it was in Hampshire, on the Surrey-Hampshire border. <strong> </strong>It seems a fairly obvious question, when you see things happen, to wonder how they happen. How can it be? In the 1800s, they could see that frogspawn — these eggs — turned into tadpoles, and even then, they’d say, “Well, how can that be?” So the idea, at that time, was probably the same as many people have now.</p> <p>If I stopped someone in the street and said, “Excuse me. Tell me, how does this frogspawn turn into a tadpole?” — what sort of answer do you think you’d get? They might say, “Well, perhaps there’s a miniature tadpole inside the egg.” That’s the best idea — and that you can’t see it because it’s so small; it just grows bigger and bigger until this little miniature tadpole frog can be seen. That was a plausible idea. Otherwise, you’re right. I mean how can it possibly happen? And when you look inside a frog egg, which you can do now microscopically, there is no tadpole there. No frog at all. It’s just like soup. But somehow it knows how to turn itself into what we see.</p> <p>So there are very good questions, I think. And if a younger person — my advice always to younger people is, find something you’re interested in and pursue it. It doesn’t matter what it is. Don’t be pushed into some direction that you think is just boring and useless. <strong> </strong>Many people who are very successful in their careers, it turned out that they were very interested and keen on whatever it was at an early age. We hear of famous sportsmen who start playing a sport at age two or three, and that’s what they really like. So parents wisely say, “Well, all right. I’ll give you a tennis racket or something, and you can just try your hand at that.” So I think the advice is — to younger people — encourage them to find anything they think is interesting and pursue it.</p> <p><strong>Do you think your experience with this awful biology teacher taught you something about persevering and sticking to your passion?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Not really, because science was out at that point, and I still had my interest. While I was struggling with the Ancient Greek and Homer and that sort of thing, half the time I was thinking, “How can these caterpillars grow?” I used to keep them in my room, to the irritation of the schoolmaster. And amazing things happen. So I think some younger people have a natural interest in something. It’s often things they can’t do much about. But sometimes they can.</p> <p><strong>You were able to follow through on your interest. What kind of personality do you think is necessary to be a good scientist?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: I suppose you should say, “Well, what about someone who comes from a family in which the father is quite successful in business?” And the child might be encouraged to be good at the business. Now, I can imagine there is some challenge there to advance the business, but I suppose, for me, I’m that kind of person who wants to always see something going forward, not just repeating what’s already been done. And I think science really offers that in a way that other things perhaps don’t, at least.</p> <p><strong>Over the course of your career, from your discovery in the 1960s to your Nobel Prize 50 years later, you’ve very consistently pursued the same line of inquiry. Why is that? </strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: <strong> </strong>In your career, you always have opportunities, sometimes to do something different or sometimes to stay the same. Most people, and I think I’m one, would say, “I prefer to follow the route that is most likely to be successful.” So I could see, by getting underway with the work we started, that every time you would answer one question, there’s always another question. And you think, “Well, I can see how to go on from there, go further.” So you see, you follow the opportunities which present themselves. Now if I had found that, at an early stage, they said, “We’ve received this application for grant support to carry out your work, but we don’t like it. We’re not giving you anything,” I would have had no opportunities. So I would have had to have done something different. But as long as the opportunities keep presenting themselves, there’s a very strong temptation to say, “Well, I’ll follow this opportunity.” And I was lucky in that opportunities kept coming up.</p> <p><strong>Why did you choose to do this with a frog’s egg?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Yes. You might say, “Why a frog?” And that’s because the frog has bigger eggs than other animals. Now you might say a chicken’s egg is bigger, or a crocodile’s egg is bigger. But most of the chicken’s egg does not form an embryo. The frog is unusual in that the whole egg forms an embryo, a tadpole. And in chickens, only a tiny part of what’s in the egg actually forms the embryo. So the frog has always been a choice for experimental biologists over centuries.</p> <p><strong>Until your experiment, the term “cloning” had only been used in reference to plant life. It was after your discovery that another biologist talking about your work first applied the term “cloning” to animals. But that was not what you were setting out to do, was it?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Absolutely not. The clones that we made were favored by magazines and newspapers —they were rather spectacular. We used an albino donor into — the nucleus from an albino cell — into dark-pigmented cells, and all the offspring came out albino. So it was quite striking, visually. And that was called cloning. But it was absolutely not at all the purpose of the experiment. From our point of view, cloning was a trivial consequence of the main experiment.</p> <p><strong>Trivial? Really?</strong></p> <p>Cloning, as in plants, just means that you make more of what you’ve already got. So most plants are now propagated for sale by cloning. You take a twig or something from a plant, and you put it in the ground, and it makes another one. That’s really what cloning is. So they saw the amphibian work as being sort of rather like that. But we didn’t use the word “cloning.” That was not what we wanted to do. We published a picture of clones — 30 frogs looking identical, all albino, from a mother frog that wasn’t albino. It was quite striking. But that wasn’t the purpose of the experiment. Scientifically, that was trivial.</p> <p><strong>To bring us back to the present, just a few days ago we heard that the FDA in the United States is likely to approve the first use of gene therapy for an inherited disease that causes blindness. Can that development be traced back to the work you were doing in the ‘60s?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: It depends how it’s done. For a long time, there’s been the idea that you can replace genes. So if you have cells in which a certain gene is defective — for a long time, those genes have been grown or cloned, for decades. So people have tried to transfer the good genes into cells which don’t have the good genes. That has been rather limited success, largely because the genes you try to add into the cell don’t go into the right place. They go into the wrong bit of the chromosome, and they don’t work very well that way. So that’s the gene therapy route, replacement genes. The nuclear transfer or cell replacement, that’s replacing cells, not genes. So that’s fundamentally different. People are now beginning to think of replacing genes, but replacing cells is more like cloning.</p> <p>Once you’ve understood the principle that all cells have the same genes, it means you can take any cell you want, skin or bone marrow, and make more of them. What you can now do is to switch those cells from one direction of specialization to another. So that’s why you can take skin and turn them into cells needed for the eye, for example. That’s a very wonderful advance. That’s not really gene therapy — it’s cell replacement, cell therapy, depending on the fact that the genes are the same in all cells. That’s why that’s possible and useful.</p> <p>You can achieve this quite well now. The big problem then is whether the authorities who determine what is allowed or what is not will allow this. To me, the sad thing is that — and I blame the legal profession for this — they make it almost impossible for this cell replacement to be useful to humans.</p> <p>Perhaps I should explain that the reason the legal system is so damaging is that lawyers, or people who administer the legal system, are able to choose compensation. So supposing I said, “I’m prepared to have a replacement of my eye cells.” Supposing I was going blind, as many people of my age do. They get this age-related degeneration of the eye, macular degeneration, and if I was in that position, I’d be very keen to have the replacement cells. The problem is that the hospitals and doctors who could technically do this cannot risk it because if it doesn’t go perfectly, and I were to run some kind of legal case against them, the lawyers would say, “We’ll award the patient a few million pounds,” and I must now go bankrupt in order to pay for it. So they really, I think, cause the real blockage in these techniques being useful to people.</p> <p><strong>When you started your work, you really had no thought of this research being used for the treatment of human disease.</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: That’s right — for two reasons. One is that I worked with frogs in the 1950s, and I did not then try to work with mice or mammals, and the work of a frog is not itself directly useful to humans. The big advance came when (Kazutoshi) Takahashi and (Shinya) Yamanaka were able to achieve a somewhat similar result with mammal cells, mouse cells. And it was done a completely different way. It’s extremely inefficient, but it does work.</p> <p>So that was why it then became clear to people that you could use this — whether you call it cloning or cell replacement — you could use that as a route into curing disorders by cell replacement, not by gene replacement. And the thing I’m talking about — with cell replacement — you don’t change the genes. They’re already there. You say, “We’ll take skin” — and they already have the same genes as your eye cells. We’re just going to increase the number of skin cells and switch them back into being embryo cells like they originally were, and then you grow the embryo cells and divert them into becoming eye cells. That’s what we mean by cell replacement.</p> <p>There is one recently discovered procedure by which you can change the genes, and that looks very hopeful. You have to use a particular procedure to replace a bad gene by a good one and then try to get the cells with the good gene into the individual. That is itself quite a problem.</p> <p><strong>There was a 50-year gap between your success with cell replacement and the Nobel Prize. Was that because a whole field of science had to develop to demonstrate the importance of what you had done?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: I think what was critical was that it had to be shown that this whole approach — the cell replacement or cloning approach — could be done in mice, and hence, therefore, in principle, in humans. Our work never got that far. The fundamental principle is the same. But the actual demonstration of doing the same thing for the benefit of humans was not clear. It took 40 years or so — more like 50 — for that to be clear.</p> <p><strong>But it did land you on the Nobel Prize stage.</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: I think the people who choose the Nobel recipients realized that our work could be seen to be the original work that made the whole thing possible, in principle, and then it had to be diverted or changed in procedure to make it appropriate for human application.</p> <p><strong>That’s a good argument for the funding of basic scientific research, isn’t it?  </strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Yes. That’s absolutely right. The work we did was on frogs, and people would say, “I’m not interested in cell replacement in frogs, obviously, because the frogs are perfectly okay without that.” When we did this, if we’d applied for a grant to do research to try and do it in mammals, it would have been unlikely to be successful because I’m not an expert on mice or human eggs. It required a lot of work by other people to make that a realistic possibility. So, while I was fortunate in getting research grants for the work I wanted to do, we didn’t ask for the grant in order to bring about cell replacement in humans. We didn’t ask for that.</p> <p><strong>Basic science funding is often under threat, but your work shows we never know where research will lead.</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: I think that’s exactly right. You need a good question to start with and a purpose. We had a question and a purpose: to see if genes are the same. That led onto — since we could take an adult cell and rejuvenate it at the beginning, the obvious question is, “Can you now switch the direction of the rejuvenated cells?” That depended on other work that was being done at that time. But it’s still true that the ultimate benefit of this early work that I did was not at all clear at that time.</p> <p><strong>Over the decades, were there other days that were as exciting as those days in 1962? There must have been years that were fallow, as in all lab research.</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: They weren’t fallow in the sense that I was always wanting to answer a question or find out a way of doing something. I actually have published papers throughout that whole period. I think I’m about 350 now. So at no point was I not doing something that was working well enough to get another grant. So you could call it fallow. By most standards, it wasn’t really fallow at all; it was quite good. It was answering other questions or questions of a lower level. But still, it was answering questions, and it followed an opportunity.</p> <p>Even now, I feel that I’m quite motivated by what I do in the lab. I was talking to someone who wanted me to talk to them just before speaking to you, and I explained to them the problem, and they said, “Oh, that’s really very interesting.” I was rather pleased. So I can see a real reason to want to progress in this direction. It’s a basic question, and I would like to be able to go on with that. So I think I can see what one can do about it. Perhaps, at intervals through my career, there’s always been another question you think you can contribute to — analyze something.</p> <p><strong>Were there failures along the way? What were they, and how do you get past them?</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: You try to do something and it just doesn’t work. You say, “I think I can.” I might say, “I think we can find out how cells behave when you treat them this way.” And in the worst case, they just die. Whatever you do, they don’t survive. So it just doesn’t work. You haven’t found the right conditions. You have to take a slightly different route — not always entirely different, but at least go off more in that direction. And then you’ll find a block there, so then try, and <em>that</em> one might work. So all the time, you’re working your way up, forward, but not always in exactly the same direction. Sometimes one thing doesn’t work, so you try another, and that one looks more hopeful.</p> <p><strong>What are the big questions that you’re working on now? What do you hope to answer? </strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: I’m working on a question that interests me a great deal, and it’s rather simple to explain. You know that our brain and our heart and our skin are very different from each other. But each of these parts of our body consists of a huge number of cells — I would say tens of the power of 11 cells; that’s about 100 billion cells, in the brain or the heart. But they’re all working the same way. So you don’t find skin cells in your brain or heart cells in your liver. So these huge numbers of cells go on being made, and they all work perfectly. So that raises the question, “Why do they not change? What keeps them in the same route?”</p> <p>It’s the other side of the question that I’ve survived on so far, which is to create new cells from things like skin. You use skin and you get eye cells. I’m now taking the other view and saying, “That’s amazingly difficult to do. Cells don’t like that at all. So what stops them from going wrong?” Sometimes they do go wrong and they become cancerous. So you want to know what holds them, in an absolutely dedicated way, in the same direction to an enormous extent. I think that’s a very important question, that all our cells, once they’ve chosen a route, they stay that way. Good thing they do. We don’t want it otherwise, but we’d like to know how that happens. That’s what I’m working on now.</p> <p><strong>Do you ever plan to retire and go back to searching for butterflies? </strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Yes. There are good questions in butterflies, but I don’t think I’m yet quite ready to embark on those. So retirement? Those of us who are lucky enough to work in a lab, we always come in and think, “Maybe tomorrow, I’ll find a note from the director saying, ‘I wish to have your space emptied by you at the end of this week. You find another job.’” That could happen any time. I could be dismissed. I use space. I get my own money — I don’t cost anything, but they could say, “There are younger people who could make better use of your space, so I, as director, will ask you to move out.” It could happen any day. Maybe at the end of this week, I’ll find a letter from the director saying, “It’s time you got out of the way.” But until that happens, I’m very keen to go on and work on the problem that I think’s very interesting. So retirement can be imposed on you at any moment. I’m mostly grateful that it hasn’t happened so far.</p> <p><strong>So you’re not looking to return to a previous love?  </strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: On butterflies, I keep thinking about that. I’ll tell you why — because many butterflies have an extraordinary color pattern. Common ones in this country have an eyespot, and moths do, too, which is on the wings. Evolution invented that so that the birds who are going to eat them are put off by these apparent eyes. The fact is that the color patterns in the eye of insects — and for that matter, colored fish — it’s absolutely obscure how those are formed. The mechanisms we know that make a leg become different from an arm or a brain simply don’t apply in that case.</p> <p>So there is some mechanism which we don’t understand at all, which is enabling these sheets of cells to make these extraordinary patterns. I would find it very interesting to know how that happens. It wouldn’t be probably any use to anyone if I did know, but at the moment, I’m more committed to this other question. If I really get dismissed, I might have to go back to butterflies and see what happens then.</p> <p><strong>Thank you so much, Dr. Gurdon. It’s been a pleasure.</strong></p> <p>Sir John Gurdon: Well, thank <em>you</em> for talking to me.</p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Sir John Gurdon Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>14 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-1898262h.jpg" data-image-caption="July 23, 2003: Professor Sir John Gurdon working in his lab at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Institute. Professor Gurdon was one of a group of scientists who co-founded the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research Campaign Institute in Cambridge in 1991, which was subsequently renamed the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research Gurdon Institute. He was the institute’s director until he stepped down in 2001. (Jonathan Player/REX/Shutterstock)" data-image-copyright="Professor Sir John Gurdon working in his lab at UK Institute in Cambridge, Britain - 23 Jul 2003" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-1898262h-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-1898262h-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66842105263158" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_978437934496.jpg" data-image-caption="2008: From left to right, stem cell pioneers Kyoto University professor Shinya Yamanaka and British researchers Ian Wilmut and Sir John B. Gurdon joining hands at a symposium in Tokyo. In 2006, Shinya Yamanaka discovered a method to transform skin cells of mice to pluripotent stem cells using a virus to introduce four genes. Pluripotent stem cells have the ability to develop into other types of cells. Yamanaka, along with Gurdon, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2012 for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent. This concept is known as induced pluripotent stem cells. Ian Wilmut is an embryologist best known as the leader of the research group that in 1996 first cloned a mammal from an adult somatic cell, a lamb named Dolly. (Photo by Kyodo News via Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Nobel laureate Yamanaka" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_978437934496-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_978437934496-760x508.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2290-award-LondonSummit_0694.jpg" data-image-caption="2017: Sir John Gurdon, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, receives the American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award from Awards Council member Dr. Peter Agre, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, during the Banquet of the Golden Plate gala ceremonies at the International Achievement Summit held in Mayfair, London. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-2290-award-LondonSummit_0694" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2290-award-LondonSummit_0694-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2290-award-LondonSummit_0694-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4872798434442" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-158096124.jpg" data-image-caption="December 10, 2012: His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden presenting a diploma and medal to Sir John B. Gurdon of England during the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony at Stockholm Concert Hall. (© Jonathan Nackstrand)" data-image-copyright="SWEDEN-NOBEL-PRIZE" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-158096124-255x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-GettyImages-158096124-511x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67894736842105" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280-2012-GettyImages-153657882.jpg" data-image-caption="October 8, 2012: Sir John B. Gurdon talks to reporters in London, England after members of the Nobel Committee announced that Sir John and Shinya Yamanaka from Japan had both been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine “for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.” (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty)" data-image-copyright="wp-2280-2012-GettyImages-153657882" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280-2012-GettyImages-153657882-380x258.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280-2012-GettyImages-153657882-760x516.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2017-symposium-LondonSummit_0482.jpg" data-image-caption="Academy guest of honor Sir John B. Gurdon, with Academy delegates, discussing his work in the fields of cell nucleus transplantation and cloning, during a symposium at the 2017 International Achievement Summit at Claridge’s Hotel in Mayfair, England. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-2017-symposium-LondonSummit_0482" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2017-symposium-LondonSummit_0482-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2017-symposium-LondonSummit_0482-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-2003-1898262d-SHUTTERSTOCK-JOHN-GURDON.jpg" data-image-caption="July 2003: Professor Sir John Gurdon working in his lab at Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Institute. In 1989, John Gurdon and a group of developmental biologists and cancer biologists set up labs together and won funding to establish the Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research Campaign Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology. The aim was to foster a collaborative environment for independent research groups with diverse but compatible interests. Their two research directions are like two sides of a coin, whereby developmental biology is concerned with how cells acquire and maintain their normal functions, and cancer is a result of cells escaping from these normal controls. In 2004, upon moving into their present purpose-built building, the institute changed its name to the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute (and has become known as the Gurdon Institute) in recognition of the achievements of Professor Sir John Gurdon. (Photo by Jonathan Player/REX and Shutterstock)" data-image-copyright="Professor Sir John Gurdon working in his lab at UK Institute in Cambridge, Britain - 23 Jul 2003" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-2003-1898262d-SHUTTERSTOCK-JOHN-GURDON-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-2003-1898262d-SHUTTERSTOCK-JOHN-GURDON-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.72368421052632" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GURDON-GROUP-AT-LABORATORY-OF-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY-CAMBRIDGE-1980.png" data-image-caption="1980: John Gurdon and the Gurdon Group at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge, England. After Gurdon’s post at the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford (1962–71), he was offered a position at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology at University of Cambridge (1971–83). (Courtesy of John Gurdon)" data-image-copyright="GURDON GROUP AT LABORATORY OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY CAMBRIDGE 1980" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GURDON-GROUP-AT-LABORATORY-OF-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY-CAMBRIDGE-1980-380x275.png [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/GURDON-GROUP-AT-LABORATORY-OF-MOLECULAR-BIOLOGY-CAMBRIDGE-1980-760x550.png"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.40938511326861" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/side-by-side-family-and-gurdon.jpg" data-image-caption="Left: 1960s, from left to right, Phil Gurdon (cousin); Elsie Marjorie Gurdon (mother); William Nathaniel Gurdon (father); Caroline Thompson (sister); and John Gurdon. Right: 1971, John Gurdon at the University of Cambridge." data-image-copyright="side-by-side-family-and-gurdon" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/side-by-side-family-and-gurdon-380x156.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/side-by-side-family-and-gurdon.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-AP_533154795266.jpg" data-image-caption="December 10, 2012: The Nobel Prize Laureate for Physiology or Medicine, Sir John B. Gurdon, right, rejoining the other Nobel Laureates after receiving his Nobel medal and diploma from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf, during the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall in Stockholm. (Photo by AP Photo and Matt Dunham)" data-image-copyright="WP-AP_533154795266" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-AP_533154795266-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/WP-AP_533154795266-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.8" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0478.jpg" data-image-caption="October 2017: Guest of honor Sir John B. Gurdon, addressing Academy delegates during a symposium at the American Academy of Achievement’s 52nd annual International Achievement Summit, at Claridge’s in London. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp--LondonSummit_0478" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0478-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2017/11/wp-LondonSummit_0478-760x608.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.54736842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_538412715404.jpg" data-image-caption="December 6, 2012: Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and Sir John Gurdon of Britain speak during a press conference at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Yamanaka and Gurdon jointly won the Nobel Prize in Medicine “for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent.” (The Yomiuri Shimbun/AP Images)" data-image-copyright="Nobel Prize Yamanaka and Gurdon" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_538412715404-380x208.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-AP_538412715404-760x416.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_1270.jpg" data-image-caption="2017: Sir John Gurdon with fellow Academy members in the White Drawing Room at Waddesdon Manor during an outing at the International Achievement Summit held in Oxfordshire. Lord Jacob Rothschild, a philanthropist and arts patron, hosted Academy members and spouses at an intimate luncheon in the White Drawing Room, one of Waddesdon’s dining rooms, which houses a large collection of 18th-century French furniture and British portraits. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="wp-LondonSummit_1270" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_1270-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-LondonSummit_1270-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280GettyImages-153649234.jpg" data-image-caption="October 8, 2012: Sir John Gurdon’s work is displayed during a press conference to announce the Laureates of the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology at the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and Sir John B. Gurdon of Britain won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their quite different work — more than 40 years apart — on reprogramming somatic cells to pluripotent stem cells. Gurdon’s fundamental experiments on nuclear transplantations into frog oocytes were done while he was a graduate student in the Zoology Department at Oxford, in the late 1950s. In 1962, Gurdon removed the nucleus of a fertilized egg cell from a frog and replaced it with the nucleus of a cell taken from a tadpole’s intestine. This modified egg cell grew into a new frog, proving that the mature cell still contained the genetic information needed to form all types of cells. (Getty)" data-image-copyright="wp-2280GettyImages-153649234" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280GettyImages-153649234-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2018/10/wp-2280GettyImages-153649234-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on June 17, 2019</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration ambitious curious " data-year-inducted="2000" data-achiever-name="Blackburn"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/elizabeth-blackburn/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/blackburn-760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/06/blackburn-760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D.</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Nobel Prize in Medicine</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">2000</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration analytical curious help-mankind racism-discrimination " data-year-inducted="1989" data-achiever-name="Elion"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/elion_760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/elion_760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Gertrude B. 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Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/lynn-nottage/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lynn Nottage</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/cal-ripken-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Cal Ripken Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/martine-rothblatt-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210905051710/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. 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