Eureka moment: 2012 Shinya Yamanaka and John Gurdon win the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Why it matters: Their work proved that mature cells can go back in time and behave like embryonic stem cells. These induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can then develop into more than 200 different types of cells.
How it’s being used now: iPS cells are an important tool for modelling human disease and screening drugs.
What’s next: The New York Stem Cell Foundation predicts that iPS cells will enable a new era in personalized medicine in which stem cells can be turned into your own biobank to replace whatever cells you’re missing, whether new heart, kidney, lung, or other tissues.
To dig deeper: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2012/press-release/; https://nyscf.org/