Malcom Ritter, Associated Press Yahoo News 9 Oct 08;
Three U.S.-based scientists won a Nobel Prize on Wednesday for turning a glowing green protein from jellyfish into a revolutionary way to watch the tiniest details of life within cells and living creatures.
Osamu Shimomura, a Japanese citizen who works in the United States, and Americans Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien shared the chemistry prize for discovering and developing green fluorescent protein, or GFP.
When exposed to ultraviolet light, the protein glows green. It can act as a marker on otherwise invisible proteins within cells to trace them as they go about their business. It can tag individual cells in tissue. And it can show when and where particular genes turn on and off.
Researchers worldwide now use GFP to track development of brain cells, the growth of tumors and the spread of cancer cells. It has let them study nerve cell damage from Alzheimer's disease and see how insulin-producing beta cells arise in the pancreas of a growing embryo, for example.
In awarding the prize, the Royal Swedish Academy compared the impact of GFP on science to the invention of the microscope. For the past decade, the academy said, the protein has been "a guiding star " for scientists.
GFP's chemical cousins produce other colors, which let scientists follow multiple cells or proteins simultaneously.
"This is a technology that has literally transformed medical research," said Dr. John Frangioni, an associate professor of medicine and radiology at Harvard Medical School. "For the first time, scientists could study both genes and proteins in living cells and in living animals."
Last year, in what the Nobel citation called a "spectacular experiment," Harvard researchers announced that they had tagged brain cells in mice with some 90 colors. The technique is called "Brainbow."
GFP was first discovered by Shimomura at Princeton University. He'd been seeking the protein that lets a certain kind of jellyfish glow green around its edge. In the summer of 1961, he and a colleague processed tissue from about 10,000 jellyfish they'd collected near the island town of Friday Harbor, Wash. The next year, they reported the finding of GFP.
Some 30 years later, Chalfie showed that the GFP gene could make individual nerve cells in a tiny worm glow bright green.
Tsien's work provided GFP-like proteins that extended the scientific palette to a variety of colors. Tsien "really made it a tool that was extremely useful to lots of people," Chalfie told reporters.
Shimomura, 80, now works at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and the Boston University Medical School. Chalfie, 61, is a professor at Columbia University in New York, while Tsien, 56, is a professor at the University of California, San Diego, and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
The trio will split the $1.4 million award.
Chalfie said he slept through the Nobel committee's phone calls early Wednesday because he'd accidentally adjusted his telephone to ring very softly. He found out about the prize only when he checked the Nobel Web site to see who had won.
"It's not something out of the blue, but you never know when it's going to come or if it's going to come, so it's always a big surprise when it actually happens," Chalfie said.
Shimomura told reporters that he, too, was surprised.
"My accomplishment was just the discovery of a protein. ... But I am happy," he said.
Speaking to reporters by telephone, Tsien thanked scientists worldwide. When they do "good things with GFP and its progeny," Tsien said he can "bask in the warmth of that glow a little bit too."
Gunnar von Heijne, the chairman of the chemistry prize committee, demonstrated the award-winning research to reporters by shining ultraviolet light on a tube with E. coli bacteria containing GFP. The tube glowed green.
Von Heijne said that kind of result "gets scientists' hearts beating three times faster than normal."
The winners of the Nobel Prizes in medicine and physics were presented earlier this week. The prizes for literature, peace and economics are due to be announced Thursday, Friday and Monday.
Three Americans, three Japanese, two French and one German researcher have won Nobel Prizes so far this year.
The awards include the money, a diploma and an invitation to the prize ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on Dec. 10, the anniversary of prize founder Alfred Nobel's death in 1896.
Associated Press writers Karl Ritter, Matt Moore and Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm, Online Video Reporter Ted Shaffrey in New York, Mark Pratt in Boston and Alicia Chang in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Glowing praise: Nobel awarded for fluorescent jellyfish protein
Nina Larson Yahoo News 8 Oct 08;
Osamu Shimomura of Japan and US duo Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien on Wednesday won the Nobel Chemistry Prize for a fluorescent protein derived from a jellyfish that has become a vital lab tool.
Green fluorescent protein (GFP) has revolutionised research in medicine and biology, enabling scientists to get a visual fix on how organs function, on the spread of disease and the response of infected cells to treatment, the Nobel jury said.
"GFP has functioned in the past decade as a guiding star for biochemists, biologists, medical scientists and other researchers," it said.
"This protein has become one of the most important tools used in contemporary bioscience."
The gene to make GFP is inserted into the DNA of lab animals, bacteria or other cells, where it is "switched on" by other genes. The glow becomes apparent under ultraviolet light.
The telltale protein gives researchers an instant way of monitoring processes that were previously invisible.
By tagging nerve cells, scientists can for instance follow the destruction caused by Alzheimer's disease. Tumour progression can be followed by adding GFP to cancer cells. By adding GFP to a growing mouse embryo, they can see how the pancreas generates insulin-producing beta cells.
In one spectacular experiment, researchers made a "brainbow," in which they tagged different nerve cells in the brain of a mouse with a kaleidoscope of colours.
Shimomura , born in 1928 and now a professor emeritus at Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) and Boston University, pioneered this tool with a study of the jellyfish Aequorea victoria in the 1960s.
He isolated a few precious grams of luminescent liquid from 10,000 jellyfish, which led to the discovery that its source was GFP, a so-called chromophore -- a chemical group that absorbs and emits light.
Shimomoura was the third Japanese citizen to win a Nobel this year, after Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa won the Physics Prize Tuesday along with Japanese-born American Yoichiro Nambu for groundbreaking theoretical work in fundamental particles.
"Honestly, I am surprised to see so many as four Japanese win in one year," Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso told reporters. "It's really good."
Chalfie, born in 1947 and a biology professor at Columbia University, followed up on Shimomura's research.
He helped identify the gene that controls GFP and found ways of inserting it into a common lab tool, the millimetre-long roundworm called Caenorhabditis elegans.
His idea was that by connecting the gene for GFP with various gene switches, or promoters, he would be able to see where different proteins were produced. "The green light would act as a beacon for various events."
Tsien, born in 1952 and a professor at the University of California, completed the final step, developing new variants of GFP that shine more strongly and in different colours, allowing researchers to mark different proteins in different colours to see their interactions.
"Today, GFP is a standard tool for thousands of researchers all over the world," the Nobel panel said.
"When scientists develop methods to help them see things that were once invisible, research always takes a great leap forward," it added.
GFP inserted in bacteria has also been adapted to make sensors that glow in the presence of arsenic -- a major problem in groundwater in Bangladesh -- and TNT.
Tsien, who was woken up by a call from the Nobel panel just before 3:00 am in California, said he was surprised to have won the prize.
"There have been rumours, but I was a little surprised anyway," he told Swedish news agency TT.
Bruce Bursten, president of the American Chemical Society, hailed the choice of this year's laureates, saying it "showcases chemistry's critical but often-invisible role in fostering advances in biology and medicine."
He added: "This is chemistry at its very best, improving people's lives."
The Nobel medicine and physics prizes were announced earlier this week, while the Literature Prize was due on Thursday and the Peace Prize on Friday.
The Economics Prize would wrap up the awards on October 13.
Laureates receive a gold medal, a diploma and 10 million Swedish kronor (1.42 million dollars, 1.02 million euros), which can be split between up to three winners per prize.
The formal prize ceremonies will be held in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10.
Nobel Prize for Chemistry
