STOCKHOLM — Three researchers won a Nobel Prize on Wednesday for giving microscopes much sharper vision than was thought possible, letting scientists peer into living cells with unprecedented detail to seek the roots of disease.
The chemistry prize was awarded to U.S. researchers Eric Betzig, 54, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Ashburn, Va., and William Moerner, 61, of Stanford University in California, and German scientist Stefan Hell, 51, director of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry.
They found ways to use molecules that glow on demand to overcome what was considered a fundamental limitation for optical microscopes.
Their work, done independently and extending back to the 1980s, led to two techniques that were first demonstrated in 2000 and 2006.
“As recently as 15 years ago, it was believed to be theoretically impossible to break this barrier,” said Nobel committee member Claes Gustafsson. He called the laureates’ work “a revolution.”
