John Gurdon Quotes

John Gurdon

Profession : Scientist

Birth : October 2, 1933

If you explain to a patient what can be done and what might be the downsides, let the patient choose; don't have ethicists, priests, or doctors say you may or may not have replacement cells.

John Gurdon

I get into lab early and leave a bit early, too. So I like to have an hour or two before everybody comes in.

John Gurdon

If you took some famous religious leader, for example, and said it would be nice to clone them indefinitely so you have a dynasty of leaders, my own guess would be that each time the cloning takes place, they would become more and more defective, presumably mentally defective and subsequently worse.

John Gurdon

I remember that, at an early age, I spent many months making a three-masted sailing boat with rigging in a half-walnut shell.

John Gurdon

I must have been born with a strong attraction toward, and possibly even an aptitude for, doing things on a small scale.

John Gurdon

Shinya Yamanaka's work has involved mice and human cells, and advances the prospect of providing new cells or body parts for patients.

John Gurdon

The first point to remember is that attempts to clone mice have actually been very unsuccessful for at least a decade. Sheep have been successful. So one asks, 'Where do humans lie?' Most people think they are somewhere between the two, but at least there's a reasonable chance they might be clone-able.

John Gurdon

The work I was involved in had no obvious therapeutic benefit. It was purely of scientific interest. I hope the country will continue to support basic research even though it may have no obvious practical value.

John Gurdon

In principle. what is done is to take the nucleus out of a cell with a very fine micro-pipette or needle and introduce it into an egg. That had been done with amphibians a long time ago, and then there was a long pause of many years before people were clever enough to make that work in the sheep.

John Gurdon