NOBEL PRIZE IN CHEMISTRY 2014
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".
രസതന്ത്രത്തിനുള്ള
ഈ വര്ഷത്തെ നൊബേല് സമ്മാനം മൂന്നു പേര് പങ്കിട്ടു. അമേരിക്കന് ഗവേഷകരായ
എറിറ്റ് ബെറ്റ്സിഗ്, വില്യം ഇ. മേര്ണര്, ജര്മന് ഗവേഷകന് സ്റ്റെഫാന് ഹെല്
എന്നിവര്ക്കാണ് പുരസ്ക്കാരം. സൂക്ഷ്മ ദര്ശനികളുടെ പ്രവര്ത്തനം മെച്ചപ്പെടുത്തുന്ന
ഫ്ലൂറസെന്സ് മൈക്രോസ്കോപ്പിയുടെ കണ്ടുപിടുത്തത്തിനാണ് പുരസ്ക്കാരം
In what has become known as nanoscopy, scientists visualise the pathways of individual molecules inside living cells. They can see how molecules create synapses between nerve cells in the brain; they can track proteins involved in Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases as they aggregate; they follow individual proteins in fertilised eggs as these divide into embryos.It was all but obvious that scientists should ever be able to study living cells in the tiniest molecular detail. In 1873, the microscopist Ernst Abbe stipulated a physical limit for the maximum resolution of traditional optical microscopy: it could never become better than 0.2 micrometres.
In what has become known as nanoscopy, scientists visualise the pathways of individual molecules inside living cells. They can see how molecules create synapses between nerve cells in the brain; they can track proteins involved in Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases as they aggregate; they follow individual proteins in fertilised eggs as these divide into embryos.It was all but obvious that scientists should ever be able to study living cells in the tiniest molecular detail. In 1873, the microscopist Ernst Abbe stipulated a physical limit for the maximum resolution of traditional optical microscopy: it could never become better than 0.2 micrometres.
Eric Betzig, Stefan W Hell and William E Moerner
are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014
for having bypassed this limit. Due to their achievements the optical
microscope can now peer into the nanoworld.
Two separate principles are rewarded. One enables
the methodstimulated
emission depletion (STED) microscopy, developed by Stefan Hell in 2000. Two
laser beams are utilised; one stimulates fluorescent molecules to glow, another
cancels out all fluorescence except for that in a nanometre-sized volume.
Scanning over the sample, nanometre for nanometre, yields an image with a
resolution better than Abbe’s stipulated limit.Eric Betzig and William Moerner, working
separately, laid the foundation for the second method, single-molecule microscopy.
The method relies upon the possibility to turn the fluorescence of individual
molecules on and off. Scientists image the same area multiple times, letting
just a few interspersed molecules glow each time. Superimposing these images
yields a dense super-image resolved at the nanolevel. In 2006 Eric Betzig
utilised this method for the first time.Today, nanoscopy is used worldwide and new
knowledge of greatest benefit to mankind is produced on a daily basis.
Prof. John Kurakar
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