This morning’s announcement is the least surprising Nobel in a long time. In addition, the discovery has as much to do with medicine as it does with chemistry. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is giving the award to American scientists Osamu Shimomura (Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, MA and Boston University Medical School), Martin Chalfie (Columbia University), and Roger Y. Tsien (University of California, San Diego) “for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP”. As the Academy noted about the GFP, “this protein has become one of the most important tools used in contemporary bioscience. With the aid of GFP, researchers have developed ways to watch processes that were previously invisible, such as the development of nerve cells in the brain or how cancer cells spread.”
Here’s the official scientific background, distributed by the Nobel Foundation (you can zoom in, or print it): How the Jellyfish’s Green Light Revolutionised Bioscience
To learn more about the discovery, check out this detailed scientific background paper…
Press release: Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008…