A Nobel for Illuminating Biology

Three chemists are honored for discovering and developing a glowing jellyfish protein.

The 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to three scientists for discovering and developing a glowing jellyfish protein that has revolutionized biology and medicine. The prize, announced this morning, recognizes Osamu Shimomura of the Marine Biological Laboratory, in Woods Hole, MA; Martin Chalfie of Columbia University, in New York; and Roger Y. Tsien of the University of California, San Diego, for their work on green fluorescent protein (GFP).

Illuminating biology: Three chemists were awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on green fluorescent protein (GFP), an imaging label derived from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria (pictured above). Credit: University of Michigan / National Institutes of Health

This imaging label has made subcellular processes visible under the microscope and illuminated the once invisible molecular workings of cells. GFP has enriched biologists' understanding of the fundamental processes underlying disease progression and normal biology. The Nobel Foundation's announcement describes GFP as "one of the most important tools used in contemporary bioscience," adding that "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."

"This is chemistry at its very best," comments Bruce Bursten, president of the American Chemical Society. "Green fluorescent proteins allow scientists quite literally to see the growth of cancer and study Alzheimer's disease and other conditions that affect millions of people."

By inserting the gene for GFP into organisms including bacteria, worms, and mice, biologists can, for instance, watch changes in gene expression in cancer cells and visualize the formation of the protein tangles responsible for Alzheimer's. They can also follow the movement of proteins during an organism's development, track migrating cells, and study the mechanics of cell division in detail.

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GFP was isolated from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria, which glows green around its rim when agitated. Shimomura, professor emeritus at Woods Hole, shares this year's Chemistry Prize for having isolated the responsible molecule in the summer of 1961. Shimomura carried out further work on GFP throughout the 1970s.

Unlike many other bioluminescent proteins, GFP doesn't need fuel to glow--it simply converts blue or UV light into green light. This quality has proved important for researchers using GFP to study cell biology under the microscope because it doesn't require the addition of other chemicals that might disturb the cells or tissues under study.