Shinya Yamanaka (山中 伸弥, Yamanaka Shin'ya, born September 4, 1962) is a Japanese Nobel Prize-winning stem cell researcher. He serves as the director of Center for iPS Cell (induced Pluripotent Stem Cell) Research and Application and a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto University; as a senior investigator at the UCSF-affiliated J.