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Published online 8 October 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.1159

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Great glowing jellyfish! It's the Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Green fluorescent protein bags the biggest gong in science.

Katharine Sanderson

The molecule responsible for a jellyfish's glow has won its discoverer and developers this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The green fluorescent protein (GFP) has revolutionized medical and biological science by providing a way to track the activity of individual proteins within a living cell, and thereby monitor how genes are expressed.

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  • I congratulate the scientists Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien. Great work! The impact of GFP to the mordern science is tremendous, when they discovered the protein, they would not have known the application of the technology, but the advancement of technology and tools has enabled the researchers to study various interactions within the organism using GFP.

    • 09 Oct, 2008
    • Posted by: Tejesvi Mysore

  • GFP is an amazing example of biomimetics(almost). The value of the Nobel lies not only in its discovey, but its foreseen potential applications. Elvis Cela

    • 14 Oct, 2008
    • Posted by: Elvis Cela