Roger Tsien, Professor of Pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego, US and Editorial Board member of Integrative Biology, has been awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for his contribution to the "discovery and development of green fluorescent protein, GFP". 

"GFP has revolutionised how we study cells and cell function, said Robert Parker, Director of RSC Publishing. "When you see pictures of cells under a microscope, most of the time it's the fluorescent glow released by GFP and its related proteins that you are actually seeing. It lets us visualise what is going on at the cellular level. Roger Tsien and colleagues' contribution to studying processes of life on a cellular level has been of exceptional importance." 

Tsien shares the Nobel Prize with two other US scientists: Martin Chalfie (Columbia University, New York) and Osamu Shimomura (Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole). 

Harp Minhas, Managing Editor of Integrative Biology, said: "We are all immensely pleased that 2008 Nobel Prize winner Roger Tsien is an Editorial Board member for Integrative Biology; his work typifies the quality of material we are seeking in the development of biology through new tools and technologies." 

Tsien is best known for designing and building molecules that either report or perturb signal transduction inside living cells. These molecules, created by organic synthesis or by engineering naturally fluorescent proteins, have enabled many new insights into signaling via calcium, sodium, inositol polyphosphates, membrane and redox potential changes, protein phosphorylation, and gene transcription. He is now developing new ways to target contrast agents and therapeutic agents to tumor cells based on their expression of extracellular proteases. 

The RSC and the Integrative Biology Editorial Team extends its warm congratulations to Roger for this fantastic achievement. 

Kathleen Too