A Japanese and a British scientist were awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine Monday for their groundbreaking work in turning adult cells into immature ones that might be tweaked further to treat a wide spectrum of diseases. Such research is being aggressively pursued at scientific institutions across San Diego County.

Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and John Gurdon of Great Britain showed that it is possible to alter adult cells to the point where they are very similar to human embryonic stem cells. But the process does not involved the destruction of embryos.

In essence, scientists can now take cells from, say, a person's skin and turn back the clock, making the cell essentially act as though it were new.

The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute issued a statement today saying, "These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and cellular specialisation. We now understand that the mature cell does not have to be confined forever to its specialised state. Textbooks have been rewritten and new research fields have been established. By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy.

"The discoveries of Gurdon and Yamanaka have shown that specialised cells can turn back the developmental clock under certain circumstances. Although their genome undergoes modifications during development, these modifications are not irreversible. We have obtained a new view of the development of cells and organisms.

"Research during recent years has shown that iPS cells can give rise to all the different cell types of the body. These discoveries have also provided new tools for scientists around the world and led to remarkable progress in many areas of medicine. iPS cells can also be prepared from human cells.

"For instance, skin cells can be obtained from patients with various diseases, reprogrammed, and examined in the laboratory to determine how they differ from cells of healthy individuals. Such cells constitute invaluable tools for understanding disease mechanisms and so provide new opportunities to develop medical therapies."

Gurdon -- who was working in his lab today when he learned that he'd won a Nobel -- made the initial breakthrough about 50 years ago, and Yamanaka built on that work, accelerating the process through genetic engineering.

The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute was created in La Jolla, in part, to probe exactly this area of research.

Will La Jolla scientists win this year's Nobel Prizes?

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Nobel Prize awarded for work on stem cells