Born on September 4, 1962, in Higashi-Osaka, Osaka Prefecture. After graduating from Kobe University School of Medicine, he trained as an orthopedic surgeon at Osaka National Hospital. But out of a sense of clumsiness in surgery and helplessness before 'patients who could not be cured,' he turned to basic research and earned a doctorate at Osaka City University. After a stint at the Gladstone Institutes in the United States and at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology, he joined Kyoto University in 2004. In 2006, by introducing four genes (Oct3/4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc) into mouse somatic cells, he succeeded in 'reprogramming' them into cells with pluripotency like that of the embryo — creating induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells for the first time in the world. The following year, 2007, he succeeded in making human iPS cells as well. For this achievement he received the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, together with John Gurdon. From 2010 to 2022 he was the inaugural director of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University, and leads the research aimed at realizing regenerative medicine.

A modest and richly humorous scientist. Openly recounting his past from surgical frustration to basic researcher, he jokes about the clumsiness of his student days by saying 'I was Jamanaka (in the way).' Yet his tenacity, shown in completing marathons, and his powers of concentration on a research theme are beyond the ordinary. He is also known for his earnest attitude toward research ethics and international responsibility.

iPS cells are one of the greatest innovations of modern medicine, making possible the kind of transformation of cell fate that had until then been considered the province of God. They have opened the way for regenerative medicine against conditions previously untreatable — Parkinson's disease, age-related macular degeneration, myocardial infarction, spinal cord injury, and more. Japan's position at the world's leading edge in iPS cell research owes much to Yamanaka's discovery and the organized research at Kyoto University's CiRA. Standing alongside Tonegawa Susumu and Honjo Tasuku at the summit of Japanese life sciences, he is a figure symbolic of 21st-century medicine.