Wednesday, October 8, 2008

I am glowing.......

We should have known, GFP wins the Prize. The stuff is like water, it is everywhere, it is hip and cool and a pretty color and it will help save lies. All the cool science geeks use GFP. AND it glows under UV. In my opinion anything that glows is pretty much a shoe in for a Nobel. Oh yeah, if you didn't hear, GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein)---which was originally obtained from a Jellyfish, was the big winner of the prize....well actually the scientists that discovered it got the prize. It would be hard for a Jelly Fish to spend 1.4 mill. You can insert GFP in a gene and when it turns on, it glows. This allows you to look at genes that would be potentially life threatening. You can look at neurons, cells, and entire organisms (puppies, rabbits, little babies (j/k) in GFP: (From yahoo: Shimomura, 80, now works at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and the Boston University Medical School. Chalfie, 61, is a professor at Columbia University in New York, while Tsien, 56, is a professor at the University of California, San Diego, and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The trio will split the $1.4 million award.) (in fact today, I even wrote to you in GFP......)

2 comments:

MommyLisa said...

you do glow.

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to comment on a blog. I think this is my first blog comment. You are a beautiful, fun, intelligent dork! That's why I love ya. Keep it up :) ~ Charisse