"My goal, all my life, is to bring this stem cell technology to the bedside, to patients, to clinics ..."
Telephone interview with Shinya Yamanaka following the announcement of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 8 October 2012. The interviewer is Adam Smith, Editorial Director of Nobel Media.
[Shinya Yamanaka] Hello
[Adam Smith] Hello, may I speak to Professor Yamanaka please?
[SY] Yes, speaking.
[AS] Oh hello, this is Adam Smith calling from the Nobel Prize website in Stockholm. We have a traditional of recording very short interviews with new Nobel Laureates. Would you be able to speak for just a very few minutes?
[SY] Okay.
[AS] Thank you. First of all, our sincere congratulations on the award of the Nobel Prize.
[SY] Oh, thank you very much. It is a tremendous honour to me. Especially I heard that I am going to share the prize with Dr. John Gurdon, so I feel more honoured, because I respect him a lot.
[AS] He established the principle of gene conservation in differentiated cells, half a century ago. And so there was this very long run up then very rapidly you have transformed the field by creating induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.
[SY] Yes, well I was able to initiate my project because of his experiments fifty years ago. Actually, he published his work in 1962. And that was the year when I was born. So I really feel just great, feel honoured.
[AS] There's a lovely symmetry about that. And it shows the progress of science, and one can't be too rushed in expecting things to happen.
[SY] Indeed.
[AS] And indeed, it's the fiftieth anniversary of your birth and of his publications.
[SY] Oh yes exactly. Yes. I just turned out to be fifty.
[AS] Congratulations on that also, then.
[SY] Thank you very much.
[AS] May I ask, what were you doing when the call from Stockholm came?
[SY] Well actually I was at home. I was doing some housework. So I was very surprised.
[AS] So you were actually doing some housework, you were cleaning the house or something?
