JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, to the 2012 Nobel Prizes. The first was awarded today for groundbreaking work in reprogramming cells in the body.

Ray Suarez looks at those achievements.

MAN: The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institute has today decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,2012 jointly to John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka.

RAY SUAREZ: The two scientists are from two different generations and celebrated today's announcement half-a-world apart.

But today they were celebrated together for their research that led to a groundbreaking understanding of how cells work.

Sir John Gurdon of CambridgeUniversity was awarded for his work in 1962. He was able to use specialized cells of frogs, like skin or intestinal cells, to generate new tadpoles and show DNA could drive the formation of all cells in the body.

Forty years later, Dr. Yamanaka built on that and went further. He was able to turn mature cells back into their earliest form as primitive cells. Those cells are in many ways the equivalent of embryonic stem cells, because they have the potential to develop into specialized cells for heart, liver and other organs.

Dr. Shinya Yamanaka is currently working at KyotoUniversity. Embryonic stem cells have had to be harvested from human embryos, a source of debate and considerable controversy.

For Gurdon, the prize had special meaning. At a news conference in London, he recalled one schoolteacher's reaction to his desire to study science.

JOHN GURDON, co-winner, Nobel Prize For Medicine or Physiology: It was a completely ridiculous idea because there was no hope whatever of my doing science, and any time spent on it would be a total waste of time, both on my part and the part of the person having to teach him. So that terminated my completely -- completely terminated my science at school.

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Stem Cell Scientists Gurdon and Yamanaka Win Nobel Prize in Medicine