John Gurdon

John Gurdon's future success was almost nipped in the bud in 1949 when a schoolmaster at elite Eton College wrote on his report card that pursuing science would be a waste of time.

Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and John B. Gurdon of Britain won the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for their groundbreaking work on stem cells, the jury said. The pair were honoured "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent," it said.

John Gurdon's future success was almost nipped in the bud in 1949 when a schoolmaster at elite Eton College wrote on his report card that pursuing science would be a waste of time.

Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and John B. Gurdon of Britain won the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for their groundbreaking work on stem cells, the jury said. The pair were honoured "for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent," it said.