Scala classOf for type parameter

Due Manifest is deprecated (Since Scala 2.10.0) this is the updated answer -

import scala.reflect.ClassTag
import scala.reflect._

object WorkUnitController extends Controller {
  def updateObject[T: ClassTag](toUpdate: T, body: JsonObject){
    val source = gson.fromJson(body, classTag[T].runtimeClass)
    ???
  }
}

You should use ClassTag instead of ClassManifest and .runtimeClass instead of .erasure

Original answer - Yes, you can do that using manifests:

object WorkUnitController extends Controller {     
 def updateObject[T: ClassManifest](toUpdate: T, body: JsonObject){
  val source = gson.fromJson(body, classManifest[T].erasure);
  ...
 }
}

Vasil's and Maxim's answer helped me.

Personally, I prefer the syntax where implicit is used for adding such parameters (the presented : ClassTag is shorthand for it. So here, in case someone else also sees this to be a better way:

import scala.reflect.ClassTag

object WorkUnitController extends Controller {
  def updateObject[T](toUpdate: T, body: JsonObject)(implicit tag: ClassTag[T]){
    val source = gson.fromJson(body, tag.runtimeClass)
    ???
  }
}

Disclaimer: I did not compile the above, but my own similar code works this way.