STOCKHOLM—Shinya Yamanaka of Japan and John Gurdon of Britain won the Nobel Prize on Monday for work in cell programming, a frontier that has nourished dreams of replacement tissue for people crippled by disease.

The two scientists found that adult cells (those that reside in our own bodies) can be transformed back to an infant state called stem cells, the key ingredient in the vision of regenerative medicine.

“Their findings have revolutionized our understanding of how cells and organisms develop,” the Nobel jury declared. “By reprogramming human cells, scientists have created new opportunities to study diseases and develop methods for diagnosis and therapy.”

Stem cells are precursor cells which differentiate into the various organs of the body.

“The discoveries of Gurdon and Yamanaka have shown that specialized cells can turn back the developmental clock under certain circumstances,” the committee said. “These discoveries have also provided new tools for scientists around the world and led to remarkable progress in many areas of medicine.”

Gurdon, 79, has served as a professor of cell biology at Cambridge University’s Magdalene College and is currently at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, which he founded. Yamanaka, born in 1962, worked at the Gladstone Institute in San Francisco and Nara Institute of Science and Technology in Japan.  They have made huge strides, with developments towards replacement tissue for victims of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other diseases.