A Japanese researcher with ties to the Bay Area joined a British
researcher as winners of this year's Nobel Prize in physiology
or medicine on Monday for discovering that ordinary cells can be
turned into stem cells, capable of building any kind of tissue
-- a discovery likely to lead to new treatments. Scientists are
already building on the work by John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka,
who leads a research team at UC San Francisco, creating "disease
in a dish" models of illnesses like Parkinson's and diabetes to
test drugs. Someday they hope to build custom-made tissue for
repair or replacement. Yamanaka's work has transformed stem cell
research because his technique bypasses the use of human
embryos, a practice slowed by ethical, political, funding and
logistical controversy. Now virtually all stem cell research
uses his technique, and the field is developing quickly. In
announcing the $1.2 million award, the Nobel committee at
Stockholm's Karolinska Institute said the discovery has
"revolutionized our understan