Nobel chemist and GFP discoverer Osamu Shimomura dies aged 90

By Emma Stoye2018-10-23T14:30:00

Osamu Shimomura, Nobel Prize Laureate for Chemistry 2008, at a press conference at the Swedish Academy of Science in Stockholm

Source: By Prolineserver, CC BY-SA 4.0, from Wikimedia Commons

Green fluorescent protein isolated from jellyfish revolutionised the study of cellular processes

Osamu Shimomura, who shared the 2008 chemistry Nobel prize with Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien for the discovery of green fluorescent protein (GFP) has died of natural causes at his home in Nagasaki, Japan, aged 90. In the 1960s he isolated GFP from the luminous jellyfish Aequorea victoria and showed that it glowed green under UV light. Others then went on to show how the gene for GFP can be incorporated into other organisms’ DNA and used to fluorescently label other proteins so that they can be seen under a microscope.