2008 Nobel Prize Awarded for Discovery of Green Fluorescent Protein

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is awarding the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2008 to Osamu Shimomura (Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts and Boston University Medical School), Martin Chalfie (Columbia University, New York), and Roger Y. Tsien (University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California) for the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein (GFP). GFP was first observed in the jellyfish Aequorea victoria in 1962. Researchers have used GFP to observe biological processes such as the development of nerve cells in the brain.