Three Scientists Win Chemistry Nobel for Nanoscopy Work

Two Americans and a German won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry today for work that allows optical microscopes to study cells in the tiniest molecular detail, aiding in research of diseases such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers.

Eric Betzig, 54, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stefan Hell, 51, of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and William Moerner, 61, of Stanford University will share the 8 million-krona ($1.1 million) award for their work on super-resolved fluorescence microscopy, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said at a Stockholm news conference today.

This prize is about seeing, said Maans Ehrenberg, a professor of molecular biology at Uppsala University and a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. The laureates have expanded what we can with see with light microscopy from bacteria down to really small molecules.

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Optical microscopes use visible light, which doesnt damage its subject. Electron microscopes, which can examine even smaller objects, require chemical preparation of the subject and cant be used on living organisms.

In fluorescent microscopy, proteins and other cell components are marked with luminescent molecules. It allows scientists to see molecules create synapses between nerve cells in the brain, as well as monitor the progress of proteins involved in diseases as they clump together, the academy said in a statement.

Due to their achievements the optical microscope can now peer into the nanoworld, the academy said. Today, nanoscopy is used world-wide and new knowledge of greatest benefit to mankind is produced on a daily basis.

Hell, who works in Goettingen, Germany, developed a microscopy method in 2000 using two laser beams, one to stimulate fluorescent molecules to glow, and another to cancel out all fluorescence except for that in a nanometer-sized volume, the academy said. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. Scanning over a sample results in an image with a much better resolution than scientists had thought possible.

Scientists long believed it was impossible to study living cells in microscopic detail, and optical pioneer Ernst Abbe in 1873 said the maximum resolution for traditional microscopes was 200 nanometers, a limit known as the diffraction barrier.

The scientific community wasnt very receptive to the idea of overcoming the diffraction barrier, Hell said by telephone at the Stockholm news conference. The barrier has been around since 1873. I couldnt figure out a serious reason in physics and chemistry why this wouldnt work.

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Three Scientists Win Chemistry Nobel for Nanoscopy Work