Reward under the microscope
The Nobel Committee named the winners of the prize in the nomination "Chemistry"
The laureates were Eric Betzig, representing the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Virginia (USA), Stefan Hell, representing the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen and the Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg (both institutes in Germany), as well as William Merner from Stanford University (USA), according to the website of the Nobel Committee.
They were awarded "for the development of ultra-high-resolution fluorescence microscopy".
Superfluorescence microscopy allows us to study the structure of various objects on a very small scale and with record high resolution. Using this technique, it is possible, for example, to study the structure of biological molecules, which is important from the point of view of creating new drugs.
"For a long time, optical microscopy has been held back by the supposed limitation that it will never have a better resolution than half the wavelength of light. The fluorescent molecules found by the winners of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry ingeniously circumvented this limitation. Their innovative work has raised optical microscopy to the level of nanoscale," the Nobel Committee's explanatory letter notes.
"Scientists have visualized the pathways of individual molecules inside living cells. Now, thanks to their discovery, it is possible to see how molecules create connections between nerve cells in the brain, track proteins involved in Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease, as well as individual proteins in the process of fertilization of eggs and what processes occur in embryos," the committee added.
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