Nobel Prize for Chemistry goes to Green Fluorescent Protein

This year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry, awarded yesterday, gives a nod to a discovery that has played an enormous role in biotechnology and become as commonplace as E. coli as a molecular tool. The discovery of green fluorescent protein (GFP) has been acknowledged as "one of the most important tools in contemporary bioscience", according to the Nobel Committee. Discovered in the 1960's, the protein makes jellyfish glow fluorescent green under UV light. The gene for the protein is now used in thousands of laboratories worldwide as a bioindicator of gene transfer and to study gene expression (i.e. localization of genes in tissues, expression of cloned genes, transcription factor binding).

The recipients of the award are Martin Chalfie of Columbia University in New York, Roger Tsien from the University of California, San Diego and Osamu Shimomura from the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory, Massachusetts.