Gurdon attended Edgeborough prep school before Eton College, where he ranked last out of the 250 boys in his year group at biology, and was in the bottom set in every other science subject.[9] A schoolmaster wrote a report stating, "I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist; on his present showing this is quite ridiculous."[10][11][12] Gurdon explains it is the only document he ever framed; he also told a reporter: "When you have problems like an experiment doesn't work, which often happens, it's nice to remind yourself that perhaps after all you are not so good at this job and the schoolmaster may have been right!"[13]
Gurdon married Jean Elizabeth Margaret Curtis, by whom he has a son and a daughter.[19]
Research
A video from an open-access article co-authored by Gurdon:[20]Animal view of different embryos developing in Xenopus laevis eggs: a diploidlaevis x laevis is shown on the top, cleaving and entering gastrulation about 50 min earlier than haploid[laevis] x laevis (middle) and [laevis] x tropicaliscybrid (bottom) embryos.
Nuclear transfer
In 1958, Gurdon, then at the University of Oxford, successfully cloned a frog using intact nuclei from the somatic cells of a Xenopus tadpole.[21][22] This work was an important extension of work of Briggs and King in 1952 on transplanting nuclei from embryonic blastula cells[23] and the successful induction of polyploidy in the stickleback, Gasterosteus aculatus, in 1956 by Har Swarup reported in Nature.[24] At that time he could not conclusively show that the transplanted nuclei derived from a fully differentiated cell. This was finally shown in 1975 by a group working at the Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland.[25] They transplanted a nucleus from an antibody-producing lymphocyte (proof that it was fully differentiated) into an enucleated egg and obtained living tadpoles.
Gurdon's experiments captured the attention of the scientific community as it altered the notion of development and the tools and techniques he developed for nuclear transfer are still used today. The term clone[26] (from the ancient Greek word κλών (klōn, "twig")) had already been in use since the beginning of the 20th century in reference to plants. In 1963 the British biologist J. B. S. Haldane, in describing Gurdon's results, became one of the first to use the word "clone" in reference to animals.
Messenger RNA expression
Gurdon and colleagues also pioneered the use of Xenopus (genus of highly aquatic frog) eggs and oocytes to translate microinjected messenger RNA molecules,[27] a technique which has been widely used to identify the proteins encoded and to study their function.
Recent research
Gurdon's recent research has focused on analysing intercellular signalling factors involved in cell differentiation, and on elucidating the mechanisms involved in reprogramming the nucleus in transplantation experiments, including the role of histone variants,[28][29] and demethylation of the transplanted DNA.[30]
Politics and religion
Gurdon has stated that he is politically "middle of the road", and religiously agnostic because "there is no scientific proof either way". During his time as Master of Magdalene, Gurdon caused some controversy by suggesting that Fellows might occasionally be allowed to deliver "an address on anything they would like to talk about" in collegechapel services.[31] In an interview with EWTN.com, Gurdon declared "I'm what you might call liberal-minded. I'm not a Roman Catholic. I'm a Christian, of the Church of England."[32]
In 1989 he was awarded the Wolf Prize in Medicine “for his introduction of the xenopus oocyte into molecular biology and his demonstration that the nucleus of a differentiated cell and of the egg differ in expression but not in the content of genetic material”.
^Gurdon, J. (2000). "Not a total waste of time. An interview with John Gurdon. Interview by James C Smith". The International Journal of Developmental Biology. 44 (1): 93–99. PMID10761853.
^Gurdon, J. B. (1962). "The developmental capacity of nuclei taken from intestinal epithelium cells of feeding tadpoles". Journal of Embryology and Experimental Morphology. 10: 622–640. PMID13951335.
