Nobel prize winners gathered in Stockholm on Monday in white tie and tails for the official 2012 awards ceremony in the company of Carl XVI Gustaf, the reigning king of Sweden.

The Cambridge biologist Sir John Gurdon shared the Nobel prize in physiology or medicine with the Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, for demonstrating how cells can be reprogrammed into a more youthful state.

Serge Haroche and David Wineland, shared the physics prize. They showed how to trap and handle particles of light and matter without destroying them.

The chemistry prize went to two US doctors, Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka, whose work revealed how the body responds to sights, smells, threats and flavours.

In a banquet speech, Mo Yan – the farm boy from China, now winner of the literature prize – said it all felt like a fairytale, but of course it was all true.