John Gurdon, professor at the University of Cambridge and winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, is visiting Korea to attend a forum on stem cell research.

Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology said Thursday that Gurdon attended the 2012 annual meeting of the Korean Society for Stem Cell Research, where he gave a special lecture and attended the opening ceremony. He will stay until Friday.

Gurdon, along with Shinya Yamanaka, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovering that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent stem cells.

During the special lecture, Gurdon introduced that mammalian and amphibian eggs have the ability to dedifferentiate, as well as the cells’ resistance mechanisms towards dedifferentiation.

Gurdon is the first person to produce a transgenic mouse through somatic cell nuclear transfer. He had also discovered how to rearrange mature cells into pluripotent cells through cloning a frog.

By Sang Youn-joo (sangyj@heraldcorp.com)