Super-resolved fluorescence microscopy

The optical microscope became a nanoscope

http://www.nobelprize.org/ site as the countdown begins for the announcement

 

photo source: Reuters

8 October 2014
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2014 to
Eric BetzigJanelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA, Stefan W. HellMax Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, and German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany and
William E. MoernerStanford University, Stanford, CA, USA “for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aghy_pQYc2w#t=42

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 was awarded jointly to
Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner  
"for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbfwcroJqWM#t=10

Surpassing the limitations of the light microscope

For a long time optical microscopy was held back by a presumed limitation: that it would never obtain a better resolution than half the wavelength of light. Helped by fluorescent molecules the Nobel Laureates in Chemistry 2014 ingeniously circumvented this limitation. Their ground-breaking work has brought optical microscopy into the nanodimension.

They brought optical microscopy into the nanodimension
Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 for having bypassed a presumed scientific limitation stipulating that an optical microscope can never yield a resolution better than 0.2 micrometres.
source:http://www.nobelprize.org/

The new microscopy in chemistry
“Because we can see individual macromolecules moving about in a living cell, we can study chemistry at a single-molecule level and in real life. And this is very, very important to chemistry because chemistry has traditionally been about studying a large number of molecules and the effect that they have. Here we can look at a single molecule as it is active in a chemical system. That means that rare events can be studied in a very different way. Reactions can be studied as they happen, not as the end result but actually as they take place. It opens entirely new possibilities for chemistry and for biochemistry.”
(Sven Lidin, chair of the Nobel chemistry committee)

Eric Betzig
Born: 1960, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Affiliation at the time of the award: Jannelia Farm Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, VA, USA
Prize motivation: "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy"
Prize share: 1/3
Other resources: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2014/betzig-or.html

"Chemistry was always my weakest subject" New Chemistry Laureate Eric Betzig was in Germany preparing for a keynote when he got the call from Stockholm.

Stefan W. Hell
Born: 1962, Arad, Romania
Affiliation at the time of the award: Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany
Prize motivation: "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy"
Prize share: 1/3

Other resources: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2014/hell-or.html

Stefan W. Hell: "I love to be a scientist." New Chemistry Laureate Stefan W. Hell was going through the details of a paper when he got the news that he had been awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Eric Betzig and William E. Moerner. He then finished reading the paragraph - and then called his wife.

William E. Moerner
Born: 1953
Affiliation at the time of the award: Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Prize motivation: "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy"
Prize share: 1/3
Other resources: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2014/moerner-or.html

William E. Moerner: "Your heart races. Can this be?" William E. Moerner was in Brazil to take part in a conference when the call came from Stockholm.  


Facts on the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 

105 Nobel Prizes in Chemistry have been awarded between 1901 and 2013. 63 Chemistry Prizes have been given to one Laureate only. 4 women have been awarded the Chemistry Prize so far. 1 person, Frederick Sanger, has been awarded the Chemistry Prize twice, in 1958 and in 1980. 35 years was the age of the youngest Chemistry Laureate ever, Frédéric Joliot, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1935. 85 years was the age of the oldest Chemistry Laureate, John B. Fenn, when he was awarded the Chemistry Prize in 2002. 58 is the average age of the Nobel Laureates in Chemistry the year they were awarded the prize.