UMaine Physicist’s Pioneering Research Cited in Nobel Prize News Stories
Announcements of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry honored three recipients and cited other researchers involved in similar pioneering research, including UMaine physicist Sam Hess. Eric Betzig of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), Stefan Hell of the Max Planck Institute of Biophysical Chemistry, and William Moerner of Stanford were awarded the $1.1 million Nobel Prize for development of super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. The technology, called photoactived localization microscopy (PALM), provides nanoscale views of the molecule. It was developed in 2006. That same year, similar methods were independently developed by Hess (fluorescence PALM or fPALM) and Xiaowei Zhuang of Harvard University (stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy or STORM). Stories about the award-winning research are online, including the announcement from HHMI.