Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded for method to visualise biomolecules
October 4th, 2017
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to confer the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017 to three scientists for developing a technique to produce detailed images of life’s complex molecular machinery. Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson have thereby received a £825,000 prize for developing an effective method for generating 3D images of life-building structures. The technique they developed, called cryo-electron microscopy, has allowed the structure of biomolecules to be studied in high-resolution for the first time, an advance that revolutionised the field of biochemistry.