So the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008 was awarded to 3 individuals for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP,
Osamu Shimomura, who first isolated and purified the protein from a jellyfish,
Martin Chalfie, who successfully expressed the GFP coding sequence in E. coli and C. elegans cells, and
Roger Tsien, who made a key point mutation that dramatically improved the fluorescence properties of GFP.
It is unfortunate, a travesty even, that Douglas Prasher was not included in the prize anouncement. He was the individual that determined the nucleotide sequence and cloned the gene for GFP. A critical, vital lynch pin to any progress that was made with GFP. I don't know who else was working in the field at the time, but it's probably true to say that a powerful tool such as this would still not be in hand, but for the work of Doug Prasher. Now, he is driving a courtesy van for an auto dealership in Alabama and has expressed his desire that he were still able to be doing laboratory research. I guess I am just a disgruntled research academic with a Rodney Dangerfield complex that can relate.
