As a biologist myself, I rub my hands in secret glee when the Chemistry prize is given to people who have developed a highly useful tool for my discipline.
I just wanted an excuse to post this (from here).
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A Developing Passion by Heather Etchevers
Sharing both life experiences and my interest in developmental biology, with a common theme loosely tied to the passage of time.
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Chemistry Nobelists
- Date:
- Wednesday, 08 Oct ober 2008 - 20:38 UTC
Last updated: Wednesday, 08 Oct 2008 - 20:38 UTC
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Comments
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That plate is beyond cool. Did the Tsien lab develp all the GFP variants?
You scooped me, by the way. Am just about to post about GFP!
The plate is surely worth an IgNobel- could he be the first scientist to hold both awards?
Cool picture – not seen that one before, though I sometime visit their site to find nifty videos for teaching use.
The Chemistry Prize does seem to be taking on a kind of “stealth biology” aspect lately, with the 2006, 2004 and 2003 Chemistry Prizes all really being biology ones.
An interesting aspect of this year’s one is that Roger Tsien has been honoured for his GFP work, though it has been common talk for years among people in physiology / neurosci that his earlier development of the small molecule fluorecent ion indicators like fura-2 was a “Nobel-worthy achievement”.
Yes, I was a little surprised about that, too, but given the warm welcome reserved for the release of calcium from intracellular stores, perhaps GFP was more of a crowd-pleaser.
Anna, I do think their lab developed all those variants on the plate. They have a very pretty holiday wreath in microcentrifuge tubes, as well:
