2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner. The prize was announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm on 8 October 2014.

The citation

The citation reads: "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy". They share the prize equally.

The laureates

Eric Betzig was born in 1960 in Ann Arbor, the United States, and is affiliated with Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn. Stefan W. Hell was born in 1962 in Arad, Romania, and is affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen and German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg. William E. Moerner was born in 1953 in Pleasanton, the United States, and is affiliated with Stanford University, Stanford.

Why it matters

Light microscopes were long thought unable to see anything smaller than half the wavelength of light. The three scientists found ways around that limit, allowing researchers to watch individual molecules inside living cells.

The prize

The prize is worth 8 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.