A glowing jellyfish protein lit up modern biology

In the 1960s, Osamu Shimomura extracted a protein from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria that glows green under blue light. Decades later, scientists learned to attach this protein to other genes, turning it into a molecular flashlight that lets researchers watch genes switch on and cells move inside living organisms in real time. The discovery won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

— Osamu Shimomura, Green Fluorescent Protein — discovery published 1962; Nobel Prize 2008