2014 Nobel prize project
Anjali Prabhala, Chad Pierce, Varun Shankaran
Stefan Hell
- Born: Dec 23, 1962
- Born in Arad, Romania
- University of Heidelberg
- Field: physical chemistry
- Fun fact: An inventor who created the 4pi microscope
Eric Betzig
- Born on Jan 13, 1960
- Place of birth: Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Education: Cornell
- Field: physical chemistry
- Fun fact: He was offered the Max delbruck prize for biological physics but declined to accept it.
William E. Moerener
Announcement of Award
Summary
- Remade the optical microscope with fluorescent molecules.
- They bypassed the limit for the maximum resolution of nanoscopy.
- Nanoscopy visualized the pathway of individual molecules inside living cells.
- 2 separate principles were awarded.
- Stefan Hell made the stimulator emission depletion microscopy in 2000.
- Two laser beams are utilized; One that stimulates fluorescent molecules to glow, another cancels out all fluorescent except for that in a nanometer- sized volume.
- This is better than Abbe's limit.
- Betzig and Moerner laid the foundation for individual molecules on and off.
- Betzig and Moerner look at the same area many times and only let a few molecules glow at a time.
- This yields an image at nanolevel.
- This was very important because
- It made it possible for the scientists to study living cells in the finest molecule details
- This passed the physical limit of maximum resolution.
How is the super resolution microscopy being used today? future impact?
- It is being used to view cells and molecules even closer than a normal microscope.
- Its a fluorescent based microscope that breaks the resolution limit letting you see things as small as 200 nm.
- It will let us study the cells and molecules more closely