生命科学与医学奖
2008

伊恩・维尔穆特（Ian Wilmut）、基夫・坎贝尔（Keith Campbell）和山中伸弥（Shinya Yamanaka）前沿性的研究揭示，哺乳动物细胞可以再塑成为早期的干细胞，他们的研究也为推进人类疾病治疗新方法和农业的发展做出了重要贡献。

在包括人类在内的脊椎动物发育过程中，受精卵发育成胚胎，胚胎内的细胞通过分化产生构成不同组织和器官的体细胞。受精卵被认为是全能性的，因为它可以发育成一个完整的机体，而胚胎内的细胞被认为是多能性的，因为它们只能分化成为构成器官的体细胞。半个世纪以前，英国剑桥大学的胚胎学家约翰·哥登发现，发育钟可以被逆转，青蛙终末分化的体细胞可以再次获得多能性或全能性功能。随后的研究证明，哺乳动物细胞，特别是人的细胞，也可以通过再塑恢复其全能性。这些研究，不但推进了我们对发育机制的了解，更使我们相信，在此基础上，会给我们带来疾病治疗方法的巨大进步。这些突破性的研究发生在最近15年。2008年度邵逸夫生命科学与医学奖获奖科学家们所做出的里程碑式的贡献，将干细胞的研究带到了一个全新的时代，全人类将因此而获益。

During the development of vertebrates, including humans, the fertilized egg develops into the embryo, and the cells in the embryo then proceed to differentiate to form somatic cells of different tissues and organs. The fertilized egg is considered totipotent, as it can develop into a whole organism, while the cells in the embryo are pluripotent because they are capable of differentiating into somatic cells that make up all the organs. Half a century ago, it was found by John Gurdon that this developmental clock can be reversed, and that differentiated somatic cells in a frog model could regain their pluripotency or totipotency. Attempts were then made to show that mammalian cells – and human cells in particular – could also be reprogrammed back to a pluripotent state, because it is believed that such knowledge may advance our understanding of developmental mechanisms, and yield new approaches for disease treatment. The breakthroughs came within the last 15 years. The scientists honoured by the 2008 Shaw Prize in Life Science and Medicine used different approaches to reprogramme an adult cell into the totipotent or pluripotent state, and in doing so made important contributions to potential new approaches to improve agriculture practices and to treat human diseases.

Ian Wilmut and Keith H S Campbell worked together in the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh for many years, using sheep as the model, in order to understand the early physiology of the egg and how laboratory manipulations can improve our knowledge of the development from egg to birth. They pioneered a new technique of starving embryo cells before transferring their nucleus to fertilized egg cells. The technique synchronized the cell cycles of both cells and the results led Wilmut and Campbell to believe that any type of cell could be used to produce a clone. In 1995, they produced a pair of lambs called Megan and Morag from embryonic cells. They performed nuclear transfer experiments in which nuclei from embryonic, foetal and adult cells of the sheep were transplanted into fertilized eggs derived from ewes. Although the yield was low, they were successful in obtaining live newborn lambs from these transfers. One of the live-born lambs, Dolly, was derived from the transplantation of the nucleus of an adult mammary cell. Thus, Dolly was the first example of the reprogramming of the adult cell back to totipotency in a mammal. They further created a sheep called Polly in which they showed that it was possible to incorporate a human gene into the donor’s DNA before cloning, thus indicating that it may be possible to use animals to produce human proteins for the benefit of mankind. Since then, the work of Wilmut and Campbell has been duplicated in many other animal species and has provided approaches to produce useful therapeutic products with cloned animals and to improve agricultural practices.