2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 8 October 2008.

The citation

The citation reads: "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Osamu Shimomura was born in 1928 in Kyoto, Japan, and is affiliated with Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole and Boston University Medical School, Massachusetts. Martin Chalfie was born in 1947 in Chicago, the United States, and is affiliated with Columbia University, New York. Roger Y. Tsien was born in 1952 in New York, the United States, and is affiliated with the University of California, San Diego and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Why it matters

Green fluorescent protein was first found in a jellyfish. It is used to make cells and proteins glow, allowing scientists to watch processes inside living things.

The prize

The prize is worth 10 million Swedish kronor, divided between the laureates. It will be presented at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December, the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite whose will founded the prizes in 1895.