Shinya Yamanaka was born on September 4, 1962, in Higashiōsaka, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Details about his family and early childhood remain largely undisclosed. He attended Tennōji High School, where he graduated with honors. Following high school, Yamanaka enrolled at Kobe University and earned his medical degree in 1987.
After receiving his medical degree, Yamanaka pursued further studies at Osaka City University. Between 1987 and 1989, he worked in orthopedic surgery at the National Osaka Hospital. He completed his Ph.D. at Osaka City University in 1993. That same year, he moved to the United States to join the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, California, where he conducted postdoctoral research.
In 1996, Yamanaka returned to Osaka, Japan, to work in a laboratory setting. However, he found the position unfulfilling due to a lack of research opportunities and described the experience as feeling like a "mouse in a trap." Seeking more meaningful work, he accepted a position at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology. There, he began focusing on embryonic stem cells and sought to identify the key characteristics that defined their pluripotency.
Yamanaka served as an associate professor at the Nara Institute from 1999 to 2003, a period that marked the beginning of his groundbreaking research. In 2004, he joined Kyoto University as a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, where he worked until 2010. In 2006, while at Kyoto University and collaborating with his team, Yamanaka successfully generated induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) from adult mouse cells. This major scientific achievement demonstrated that mature cells could be reprogrammed to a pluripotent state by introducing a specific combination of transcription factors.
| Birth Date: | 4 Sep, 1962 |
| Age: | 57 yrs |
| Citizenship: | Japan |
| Birth Place: | Hiraoka |
| Gender: | Male |
| Description: | Japanese stem cell researcher |
