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Interaction with Dr. Martin Chalfe On 5th January 2011, our students got a rare opportunity to interact with the 2008 Nobel prize winner in Chemistry, Dr, Martin Chalfe .We, teachers along with the students were honored and we really express our gratitude for the authorities for giving us an opportunity to meet a Nobel laureate. He shared the Nobel Prize along with Osamu Shimomura and Roger Y. Tsien for the discovery of a Protein molecule called Glowing Fluorescent Protein. He also talked about the future possibilities of the use of GFP. He also shared some of his beliefs. “A student can achieve the most when both the teacher and student work together at the same level”. He also believes in experiments. About teacher-student relationship, his views are very clear. They are equal and teachers are sharing their information with the students. During his school/college days three teachers really inspired him. One was his calculus teacher, the other one, his biology teacher and also his research guide. He made it clear that there is no Japanese science, Indian science, US science, or French science. Science is different for different people but is general for the world, He was answering a question made by a professor, can India be the next super power? About his discovery and its prospects According to him, the greatest discovery in biology is the discovery of DNA. Columbia University professor and researcher Chalfie, a Chicago native born in 1947, demonstrated the value of GFP as a luminous genetic tag for various biological phenomena. In one of his first experiments, he colored six individual cells in the transparent roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans -- an organism commonly used in research—with the aid of GFP. Using this glowing marker researchers can watch the movements, positions and interactions of tagged proteins and spot signs of trouble, such as when a protein malfunctions, that can lead to illness and disease, including nerve cell damage during Alzheimer's disease or how insulin-producing beta cells are created in the pancreas of a growing embryo What is GFP? 1. The chemical processes of cells are usually regulated by proteins. There are tens of thousands of different proteins, each with different functions Osamu Shimomura is a researcher at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), MA, and BostonUniversity Medical School, first to isolate the GFP protein from a jellyfish. He then subsequently discovered that this protein glowed bright green under ultraviolet light. At Columbia University, New York, Martin Chalfe established the importance of GFP as a luminous genetic tag for diverse biological phenomena. In his pioneer experiment, he was able to color six individual cells using the transparent roundworm Caenorhabditis Elegans with the support of GFP. It was only after Chafee’s discoveries that Roger Y. Tsien from the University of California; San Diego was able to contribute to how GFP fluoresces work Since 1962, when the protein was first discovered, it has developed into one of the most imperative tools used in present-day bioscience. With the help of GFP, researchers have improved techniques to observe processes that were previously invisible, such as the occurrence of nerve cells in the brain, or how cancer cells spread. Date:11-03-2011 Prepared by Department of Chemistry, Trivandrum International School
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