Glowing Cells

Hunter Hinton
10/13/08


Three Chemists Win Nobel Prize For Glowing Cells

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/science/09nobel.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin

Three chemists, Osamu Shimomura, a Professor at the Marine Biological University in Woods Hole Mass., Martin Chalfie, a professor at Columbia University, and Roger Tsien, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, won the Nobel prize this year for their study of glowing jellyfish and cells. They were able to take some of the proteins that allowed certain types of jellyfish to glow, and transfer these proteins into cells, causing them to become very fluorescent. In this fluorescent state, the cells could be observed much easier.

This article relates to topics we have studied this year because it deals with cells and proteins. These scientists were able to single out the proteins that allowed jellyfish to glow, and transfer them to cells. When the cells were glowing, they were able to be seen much easier.

This new research and technology is greatly beneficial to our society because the scientists have already used it to study nerve cells that are damaged during Alzheimer’s disease. In the future, this research could lead to a cure for something like Alzheimer’s disease that affects a large number of our population.