Mayor Edwin M. Lee today issued the following statement after Shinya Yamanaka, M.D., Ph.D., Gladstone Institutes Senior Investigator and UCSF Professor of Anatomy, was named to receive the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent:

“Today we honor Dr. Yamanaka’s award of the prestigious Nobel Prize and his celebrated discovery of transforming adult cells to develop into any cell in the human body with boundless potential for medical advancement.

It is a proud day for all San Franciscans as we come together to celebrate Dr. Yamanaka’s achievement and commend everyone at the Gladstone Institutes, UCSF and Kyoto University. I also want to congratulate Dr. John Gurdon of the University of Cambridge with whom Dr. Yamanaka shares the Nobel Prize with.

Today is another reminder why we often say that San Francisco is the ‘Innovation Capital of the World.’”

The Gladstone Institutes is located in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission Bay, one the nation’s premiere life sciences clusters. Designed from the ground-up as a premier center for science and innovation, Mission Bay is a 303-acre mixed-use, transit oriented, and sustainable redevelopment project area. Mission Bay is anchored by a number of leading research institutions including UCSF’s Mission Bay Campus and Medical Center, the Gladstone Institutes, the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Mission Bay is home to more than 40 life sciences companies with more than 110 life sciences companies citywide. Companies located in Mission Bay include FibroGen, Nektar, Celgene, and Pfizer. There are now four life sciences incubators located in Mission Bay. The first phase of the UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay is under construction and will include a 289-bed complex featuring three separate hospitals specializing in serving children, women, and cancer patients.

At full build out, Mission Bay will accommodate over 6,000 units of housing (30 percent affordable), 4.4 million square feet of office and R&D space, a 43-acre UCSF research campus and 550-bed medical center, 500,000 square feet of retail, a 500 room hotel, 49 acres of new public open space, a new 500-student public school, a new public library, a new fire and police stations and other community facilities.