Oct 22 (NHK) - Osamu Shimomura, a co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008, has died at the age of 90.
Shimomura was born in Kyoto Prefecture in 1928. He was an assistant professor at Nagoya University and worked at the Marine Biological Laboratory in the US before becoming a professor emeritus at Boston University.
Shimomura and 2 American scientists won the Nobel prize for the discovery and development of GFP, or green fluorescent protein.
In 1962, Shimomura isolated GFP from jellyfish that drift off the west coast of North America. He discovered that the protein glows bright green under ultraviolet light.
Researchers use GFP as a fluorescent marker to observe living cells. The protein has become an essential tool for studying iPS cells and other research in medical and life science.
