Kyoto Prize eMuseum

<img src="/sites/default/files/future/laureates/ShinyaYamanaka_01.jpg" class="fig1" />Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1962. Influenced by his father who operated a small factory of producing sewing machine parts, he loved tinkering with machines. He was once scolded by his mother for taking clocks apart and being unable to put them back together. <br /> <br /> Encouraged by his father, he decided to become a doctor and entered Kobe University School of Medicine. As he experienced breaking a bone many times during his sports activities, he thought to become an orthopedist. But while examining patients suffering from injury and intractable disease, he recognized the importance of the basic research aimed at discovering the causes of illnesses, and made up his mind to become a medical researcher. <br /> <br /> He understood that somatic cells originally evolve from a single fertilized egg, but he believed that if it were possible to create a cell that behaved much like a fertilized egg, as though travelling back in time, then this could be of great use in the treatment of diseases and injuries. On the path toward realizing his dream of putting such a cell to practical use, he undertook research from 1993 at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in the U.S., from 1999 at Nara Institute of Science and Technology, and from 2004 at Kyoto University. In 2006, he identified four important genes, and using mice, he successfully created pluripotent cells which are able to change into any type of cell. He named these Induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) Cells. The following year, he succeeded in creating iPS cells from human skin cells.<br /> <br /> <img src="/sites/default/files/future/laureates/ShinyaYamanaka_02.jpg" class="fig3" />As Director of Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, which was established at Kyoto University in 2010, he conducts research aimed at developing new drugs and contributing to the field of regenerative medicine.