Nobel Prize 2014 in Chemistry for Stefan Hell
The physicist Stefan Hell, who is associated with the Volkswagen Foundation since 2001, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He shares the prize with Eric Betzig and William E. Moerner.
Stefan Hell, Director at the
Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, receives the award his pioneering work in the field of ultra-high resolution fluorescence microscopy. The Volkswagen Foundation supports Hells research since 2001 – currently in a project within the funding program "
Integration of Molecular Components in Functional Macroscopic Systems". Hells career began with the spectacular breaking of a scientific convention. He doubted the "Abbe limit of optical resolution", discovered about 130 years ago, which can be found in any physics textbook. The problem: Depending on the color, visible light has a specific wavelength of about 400 to 700 nanometers. Even with the best light microscopes, two similar objects that are closer than half a wavelength (200 nanometers) to each other could not be individually identified. Structures and details smaller than 200 nanometers were blurred – until Hell succeeded in the development of Stimulated Emission Depletion Microscopy (STED) in 1999. With the help of fluorescent light microscopy and related techniques, biologists and physicians are now able to study processes in living cells, such as the complex interplay of proteins. An important step ahead towards the elucidation of the molecular basis of diseases. Press release of Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry:
http://www.mpg.de/8688233/Chemistry-Nobel-Prize-Stefan-Hell
