Green Fluorescent Protein Essay

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lurAmanda Lans Chemistry 14/11/2011 Word count: 1091 Nobel prize winner essay Nobel prize year: 2008 Awarded for: “The discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP". Awarded to: Osamu Shimomura’s, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien Introduction and history of discovery Multiple winners won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 2009; they were Osamu Shimomura’s, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien. It was won in response to “The discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP". The development began when Osamu Shimomura’s research about bioluminescence. This is when a chemical reaction inside a living organism produces light. When he was studying glowing jellyfish in the early 1960’s he decided to isolate bioluminescent protein, which produced blue light. The funny thing about this is that even though the protein gave off blue light the actual jellyfish had a green glow to it. During further study it was discovered that although the blue light produced by the protein was absorbed by another protein within the jellyfish, the protein re-emitted green light. Therefore it was later named green florescent protein or GFP. The actual capability of the GFP to develop the blue to green light seemed to be correlated to its construction, occurring without the need of any other factors. Of course Osamu Shimomura was not the only one who played an important role in when it came to “the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP". When Martin Chalfie caught wind about the green florescent protein in 1988, he realized that maybe an independent florescent could be the perfect cellular signaling mechanism for the kind of organisms he studied. Using molecular biological techniques, Chalfie managed to introduce the gene, which enables the GFP into the DNA of a small and almost transparent organism from the worm family
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