Cultured HeLa cancer cells depicted using fluorescent proteins to illustrate Golgi apparatus (orange) and microtubules (green), with DNA-carrying nuclei counterstained blue.IMAGE COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTHThree researchers who were instrumental in discovering and developing green florescent protein (GFP), which revolutionized how biologists observe the functioning of living cells, have won the 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Osamu Shimomura, now at the Marine Biological Institute in Woods Hole, MA, Martin Chalfie, a Columbia University cell biologist, and Roger Tsien, a University of California, San Diego, biochemist will share more than $1.4 million (USD) when they officially receive the prize in December. The Nobel committee member who announced Shimomura, Chalfie, and Tsien as this year's chemistry prize winners said that GFP has proven to be a "tiny molecular flashlight" shining light on cellular processes that were long obscured by microscopic darkness.
The use of GFP to tag and visualize proteins as they function in cells has become widespread in cell and molecular biology, and the technique has been cited in well over 30,000 scientific papers, according to Jeremy Berg, director of the NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences. GFP has been used to track key proteins in cancer, HIV, and other diseases that affect humans. "I was not at all surprised and very pleased" to hear the news of the chemistry prize Berg, told The Scientist. Berg said that he had been predicting that GFP's Nobel day would come for the past few years and called the florescent technique "part of the fabric of cell biology." According to Tsien, who answered reporters' questions on the ...
