On Wednesday in Stockholm, the Nobel Committee announced that the Nobel Prize in chemistry receive Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell, and William E. Moerner for the development of a fluorescence microscope with very high resolution. Thanks to their work, you can now examine living cells at the level of the smallest particles.
– This award certainly belonged to researchers, but we are surprised, because I was given in the field of chemistry. As well these scientists could award the Nobel Prize in medicine or the Nobel Prize in physics – says the director of the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences Robert Hołyst.
Developed by Nobel Prize winners fluorescence microscope with high resolution optical tool is – and finally optics is a branch of physics. It is also a tool used by biologists willingly. – Molecular biologists used it to watch neurons or cell interior with very high accuracy and observing what happens to these cells at the time – said prof. Hołyst.
Conventional microscopes can show two objects, provided that the distance between them is greater than half the wavelength of the light which is 200 nanometers (1 millimeter to 1 million nm). – When the objects are close, the image blends with each other. In contrast, this year’s Nobel Prize winners thanks to research managed to reduce this distance to several nanometers, and maybe even one nanometer, which corresponds to the size of the molecule – explains the researcher.
(ew / PAP-Science in Poland)
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