Three researchers who worked on a fluorescent protein found in jellyfish and developed it into a standard laboratory tool have been awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry, the prize committee announced today. The three researchers, Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, and Roger Tsien, worked separately to first isolate the protein, which glows brightly when exposed to ultraviolet light, and then to develop ways to use it as a luminescent marker in the cells of other organisms.
Said the prize committee: "The remarkable brightly glowing green fluorescent protein, GFP, was first observed in the beautiful jellyfish, Aequorea victoria in 1962.... Since then, 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" [Reuters].
Shimomura began the work ...
