October 8, 2008 Woods Hole researcher wins Nobel Prize in chemistry Play video

(Ally Donnelly, NECN: Falmouth, MA) - The Nobel Prize in chemistry is being shared this by two Americans, and a Japanese scientist who worked at the marine biological laboratory at Woods Hole on Cape Cod. They're being honored for their work on green fluorescent protein, something found in jellyfish.

In seaside Falmouth, Massachusetts -- there's a celebrity in town. But it's not the Hollywood glitterati -- it's an unassuming octogenarian in a woolen sweater.

80-year-old Osuma Shimomura is a retired researcher from the marine biological laboratory in Woods Hole. And at 5 am he got a call from the royal Swedish academy of sciences -- which has awarded him the Nobel Prize for chemistry.

“My baby. My baby developed to a good, big adult. Big and famous.”

Though the native Japanese man's English may be a bit rough around the edges....his life's work, his baby -- is impressive indeed. In the 1960s, he helped discover a protein in jellyfish that glows in the dark. When the green fluorescent protein -- or GFP -- is inserted into living cells -- they too light up bright green under fluorescent light.

The GFP has been used to light the way for researchers tracking -- say -- the development of once-invisible brain cells, the spread of cancer cells or mapping Nerve cell damage from Alzheimer’s disease.

Shimomura shares the honor with two other scientists working with GFP-- Roger Tsien at the University of California and Martin Chalfie at

“People have used green fluorescent protein, GFP, in many ways to study basic fundamental properties of cells and that's the basis of our understanding of disease and also important for our development of new biotechnologies as well.”

The Chemistry prize winners will share a 1.4 million dollar prize, they will each get diplomas and trips to Oslo and Stockholm to receive them in December -- on the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death.