The 08 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie, and Roger Y. Tsien "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP."

While this award might sound sort of comical and worthy of an Ig rather than an actual Nobel, GFP is an important tool in modern medicine, biology and biochemistry. The press release notes "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."

Each of the awardees has developed the use of GFP. Simomura discovered that the protein flouresces and isolated it in the lab. Chalfie first used it as a luminous genetic tag in the lab. Tsien increased understanding of why the protein flouresces and developed versions that flouresce in colors other than green allowing multiple tags in the same experiment.

Tomorrow, Literature.

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