Word: kyoto
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...remain based in Japan because he doesn't want to pull his children out of high school. He has also been a father figure to younger colleagues-one that isn't afraid to share the credit. "He's a guiding teacher," says Kazutoshi Takahashi, an assistant professor at Kyoto and Yamanaka's first student. "Everyone in the lab gets the opportunity to have their names in big papers...
...right ones, and when Yamanaka offered the experiment to one of his students, the researcher turned him down. "We knew the chance that the correct answer was in those 24 factors was very small," says Yamanaka during an interview in his cramped office on the second floor of Kyoto University Hospital. "It was a risky project, and you had to be very brave...
...Fortunately, Yamanaka had one student who was brave-or at least, knew when to say yes to his boss. Takahashi spent endless hours screening the candidate genes. "Perhaps this is not something Kyoto University should know, but I worked 365 days a year," Takahashi laughs. Using retroviruses to deliver the genes into mouse skin cells, Yamanaka and Takahashi eventually narrowed the number down to four active genes that triggered the transformation...
...disadvantage. Scientists in the U.S. and Europe can draw on deeper reserves of money and talent. U.S. states such as California and Massachusetts are spending billions of dollars on stem-cell research, hoping to lay the groundwork for development of new medical industries. In contrast, Yamanaka's lab at Kyoto is relatively basic, and the Japanese government has only recently begun channeling real funding into the field. "There is a lack of understanding about how important this research is among government people, and Japanese in general," he says...
...Yamanaka, the temptation exists to flee to greener pastures. But he says that he intends to stay in Kyoto for now, where his discoveries can directly benefit Japan. Besides, his small lab jumped to an early lead, and Yamanaka hints that they may have more breakthroughs in store. "I think that this year or next year we could see [reprogramming] in human cells," he says. "I really believe it could come from our lab." If it does, Yamanaka won't have to worry so much about the skepticism of his fellow scientists...