Gurdon and Yamanaka win Nobel prize for medicine STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Briton John Gurdon and Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka won the 2012 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology for research which revolutionized understanding of how cells and organisms develop, the award-giving body said on Monday. "These groundbreaking discoveries have completely changed our view of the development and specialization of cells," the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute said in a statement when awarding the prize of 8 million crowns ($1.2 million). Medicine is the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year. Prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel. ($1 = 6.5846 Swedish crowns) Editing by Patrick Lannin and Alistair Scrutton.