Sir John Gurdon, 1933-2025

Some years ago, John Gurdon was explaining how he had come to have a research institute named after him while still very much alive. He said it was because he was the oldest of the group of scientists who had founded the institute, and there had been a reasonable expectation that it wouldn’t be named after a living person for too long. 

“It’s just one respect in which I have failed to live up to expectations,” he concluded with a wry smile. 

On 7 October 2025, a few days after his 92nd birthday, John died. His modesty and humour will be missed by all who knew him. But his unique approach to science – to life – will continue to characterise the Gurdon Institute for years to come. 

As a boy, John Gurdon loved butterflies and moths, and dreamed of a career in zoology. His teachers couldn’t see it. In his first (and only) report on John’s educational progress, one science teacher wrote, “I believe he has ideas of becoming a scientist: on his present showing this is quite ridiculous.” Science was taken off John’s curriculum. 

Not one to be deterred, John eventually went to study zoology at the University of Oxford. He stayed on to do a PhD, during which he made a breakthrough discovery. He showed for the first time that the specialisation of cells is reversible – then spent the rest of his lifelong career understanding how it works. 

Essentially, John had cloned a frog from a tadpole's intestinal cell. Transplanting the nucleus of that specialised cell into an empty egg cell caused a new frog to grow that was genetically identical to the original tadpole. 

The discovery, in 1962, caused shockwaves around the scientific community, disproving previously held dogma developed by more established scientists. 

Counterintuitive and with no apparent application at the time, this experiment underpins a vast amount of research in stem cell research and regenerative medicine that has followed. In 2012, John shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work. 

In 1991, together with his former PhD student Ron Laskey and four other colleagues, John founded the Wellcome Trust / Cancer Research UK Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology in Cambridge. Today, it continues to lead the way in understanding the fundamental mechanisms of biological development and developing, where possible, new treatments for diseases in which these mechanisms begin to fail. 

From the start, they made sure that research group leaders came from a range of different fields and departments across the University of Cambridge. They emphasised open communication, creativity and social activities that bypassed any sense of hierarchy (the Christmas parties were particularly infamous). Decisions were made democratically, with the vote of a junior group leader carrying the same weight as the Director’s. 

John was the Director for the first 10 years. After stepping down from the role in 2001, he stayed on as a group leader, his passion for research remaining undimmed. It was at this point that the institute’s name was changed to recognise his leadership and scientific contributions. 

When he was awarded the Nobel Prize, John described himself as “the ultimate non-intellectual”. 

William Castell, then Chair of Wellcome, put it a little differently: “Thanks to the direction of John and his colleagues, Gurdon scientists are free to be themselves, enjoy their work and concentrate on what really matters – the research.” 

John brought this same ethos to Wellcome’s Board of Governors, which he joined in 1995. It was a time of expansion for Wellcome, with charitable spend leaping from £240 million in 1995 to £640 million in 2000, when John stepped down. A major decision the Board made in that time was to double Wellcome’s support for the Human Genome Project, which made sure the results would remain in the public domain. 

Whether in research, leadership or governance, John’s commitment to blending hard work with great fun will always be remembered.