Green Fluorescent Protein Scientists Win Nobel Prize In Chemistry

October 13, 2008 8:32 p.m. EST

Stockholm, Sweden (AHN) - A Japanese national and two American researchers won this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the discovery of the green fluorescent protein, or GFP as well as utilizing biological processes inside cells and behind diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's.

Osamu Shimomura, 80, of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. ; Martin Chalfie, 61, of Columbia University in New York ; and Roger Tsien, 56, of the University of California-San Diego won the prestigious award for their work in utilizing a glowing protein in a species of jellyfish called Aequorea Victoria.

The trio will split the $1.4 million prize awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science.

Shimomura first discovered the protein in 1962 and discovered that the protein glowed green under ultraviolet lights while Chalfie demonstrated the value of GFP as luminous genetic tag for various biological phenomena.

Tsien, on the other hand, extended the color other than beyond green allowing researchers to give various proteins and cells different colors.