This blog post was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

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Paul Johnston

Ambassador to Ireland

Part of UK in Sweden

12th December 2012

FAILURES, FROGS AND FINDINGS, BRITAIN’S 2012 NOBEL LAUREATE

Today my blog in the Local, “The Diplomatic Dispatch”  lives up to its name, as I post the text of the diplomatic telegram I sent back to London yesterday about Britain’s Sir John Gurdon’s Nobel prize win. I presented John with a copy of the text yesterday and he liked it, so I hope it means I’ve explained the science correctly – as a mere political scientist I am treading warily!

Summary

Sir John Gurdon honoured for ground-breaking research on reprogramming of cells, work which laid the basis for subsequent advances in stem cells and cloning.

Detail

1.     Sir John Gurdon, famously condemned by his Eton science master as a hopeless student, received his profession’s ultimate accolade last night when the King of Sweden presented him with the Nobel prize for Physiology or Medicine.

2.     Gurdon’s most important research, completed 50 years ago on a special species of African frog, demonstrated that the evolution of cells is not a one-way process. Gurdon replaced the immature cell nucleus in an egg cell of a frog with the nucleus from a mature intestinal cell of a tadpole. This modified egg cell developed into a normal tadpole. The DNA of the mature cell still had all the information needed to develop all cells in the frog. He thus carried out the first cloning of a vertebrate. The cloning of Dolly the sheep, the world’s first cloned mammal, followed the principle that Gurdon had used in his frog experiments.

3.     Subsequent research, particularly by Gurdon’s fellow 2012 laureate, Shinya Yamanaka, proved that mature cells could be returned to the stem cell stage. This research, now advancing rapidly, allows human skin cells to be reprogrammed into stem cells, giving science access to new tools for better understanding disease and for developing diagnostics and therapies. Commending John Gurdon at the award ceremony, the Nobel jury said that his research had “fundamentally changed our view of human development and cell specialisation.”

4.     Sir John set his discoveries in context in a lecture on the battle for supremacy between the egg and the nucleus, at the Karolinska Institute on 7 December.

5.     In his speech at the Nobel Banquet, he noted that frogs had figured prominently in the world of literature, from Aristophanes to Toad of Toad Hall. Quoting Belloc, he said “no animal will more repay treatment that is kind and fair.”   He explained that his work had raised the possibility of giving people new cells of their own genetic kind, and hence, without immuno-suppression, to replace cells worn out by age or disease, a hope of the new field of regenerative medicine.

Comment

6.     It’s fitting that ground-breaking research, which has paved the way for advances in treatment of illness should be celebrated on the day the UK Government committed £100m of new investment in science.

About Paul Johnston

Paul Johnston joined the UK Civil Service in 1990, working for the Ministry of Defence initially. He has served in Paris and New York and has also had a wide…

Paul Johnston joined the UK Civil Service in 1990, working for the Ministry of Defence initially.

He has served in Paris and New York and has also had a wide range of political and security roles in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. Paul joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1993 as Desk Officer for Bosnia. As part of this role he was also Private Secretary to EU negotiator Lord Owen and his representative on Bosnia Contact Group.

His first foreign posting was to Paris in 1995-99 as Second Secretary Political. He was Private Secretary to the Ambassador and latterly part of the UK delegation to the Kosovo Rambouillet negotiations. Then he returned to London as Head of the Kosovo Policy Team, leading work on post-conflict policy in the EU, NATO, UN and G8.

Before his second overseas posting to New York in 2005, Paul held a variety of other EU policy and security appointments in London, such as Head of European Defence Section between 2000-01 and Head of Security Policy Department between 2002-04.

As Head of the Political Section in UKMIS New York, he advised on major policy issues for the UK on the Security Council and the UN World Summit, including the UK EU Presidency in 2005.

Paul returned to London in 2008 as Director, International Security for the FCO. He was responsible for policy on UN, NATO, European Security, arms control and disarmament, human rights and good governance.

Paul was British Ambassador to Sweden from August 2011 to August 2015 and then was Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO.

He was UK Ambassador to the EU for Political and Security affairs from 2017 to January 2020 and became Ambassador to Ireland in September 2020.