Stem cell researchers Shinya Yamanaka (pictured) and John Gurdon have just been awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine. Both are featured in the film STEM CELL REVOLUTIONS. 

Commenting on the news, Clare Blackburn, science producer of the film and one of the professors at the University of Edinburgh's MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, said: "The work of John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka has been transformative. We are so delighted to hear this news."

Filmmaker Amy Hardie added: "So many scientists have said that Shinya Yamanaka has overturned our understanding of basic developmental biology. And he has – with the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells.

"What Shinya Yamanaka himself points out and we were able to show in our film STEM CELL REVOLUTIONS, is the lineage from John Gurdon who cloned frogs in Cambridge. Shinya's groundbreaking discovery would not have been possible without Gurdon's pioneering work.

"This is a Nobel Prize that celebrates both how science progresses from generation to generation and how individual scientists with one experiment can overturn knowledge that had been enshrined in biology textbook for years.

"It's been an honour to have been granted the access to both John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka and to have them generously explain their groundbreaking innovations in language a non-scientist can understand."

Here is a clip from the film that links Gurdon and Yamanaka. There's much more about Yamanaka's work in the film.

You can preview, rent, or buy the whole 70-minute film for personal or educational use here. You can also embed the clip below using the Share button on the top right when playing.

Player image: Stem cell pioneers Shinya Yamanaka, Ian Wilmut, John Gurdon in STEM CELL REVOLUTIONS