Roger Tsien,,, and, Nobel Prize Laureates 2008, at a press conference at the in Stockholm. Tsien was born in New York, in 1952. He grew up in and attended there. His family was from., his father, was a.

Tsien suffered from asthma as a child, and as a result, he was often indoors. He spent hours conducting chemistry experiments in his basement laboratory. When he was 16, he won first prize in the nationwide with a project investigating how metals bind to thiocyanate. Education [ ] Tsien attended on a, where he was elected to as a junior. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in and in 1972. According to his freshman-year roommate, economist and Iowa politician, “It’s probably not an exaggeration to say he’s the smartest person I ever met.

[a]nd I have met a lot of brilliant people.” After completing his bachelor's degree, Tsien joined the at the in, with the aid of a, and resided. He received his in in 1977 for research on The Design and Use of Organic Chemical Tools in Cellular Physiology formally supervised by in the Department of Physiology and assisted by Andy Holmes, Gerry Smith and in the Department of Chemistry. Research and career [ ] Following his Ph.D., Tsien was a Research Fellow at from 1977 to 1981. He was appointed to the faculty at the, from 1982 to 1989.

Beginning in 1989, he worked at the, as Professor of Pharmacology and Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and as an investigator of the. Tsien contributed to the fields of cell biology and neurobiology by discovering genetically programmable fluorescent tags, thereby allowing scientists to watch the behavior of molecules in living cells in real time. He also developed fluorescent indicators of ions and other ions important in biological processes.

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GFP Movie showing entire structure and zoom in to fluorescent chromophore. Movie created by Erik A.

Rodriguez with UCSF from in memory of Roger Y. Tsien for the Birch Aquarium.

In 2004, Tsien was awarded the 'for his seminal contribution to the design and biological application of novel fluorescent and photolabile molecules to analyze and perturb cell signal transduction.' In 2008, Tsien shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with and for 'the green fluorescent protein: discovery, expression and development.' Fluorescent proteins [ ] The multicolored developed in Tsien's lab are used by scientists to track where and when certain genes are expressed in cells or in whole organisms.

Typically, the gene coding for a protein of interest is fused with the gene for a fluorescent protein, which causes the protein of interest to glow inside the cell when the cell is irradiated with ultraviolet light and allows microscopists to track its location in real time. This is such a popular technique that it has added a new dimension to the fields of molecular biology, cell biology, and biochemistry. Since the discovery of the, numerous different mutants of GFP have been engineered and tested. The first significant leap forward was a (S65T) reported by Tsien in 1995 in Nature. This mutation dramatically improved the fluorescent (both and ) and spectral characteristics of GFP. A shift of the major excitation peak to 488 nm with the emission peak staying at 509 nm thus can be clearly observed, which matched very well the spectral characteristics of commonly available facilities.

All these then largely amplified the practicality of using GFP by scientists in their research. Tsien mainly contributed to much of our understanding of how GFP works and for developing new techniques and mutants of GFP. Former trainees include Atsushi Miyawaki and. Timelines of GFP-development involved by Tsien: • 1994: Tsien showed the mechanism that GFP is formed in a chemical reaction which requires but without help from the other proteins.

• 1994–1998: Tsien and collaborators made various GFP mutants by genetic modification and structural tweaking. Serious Sam The Second Encounter Download Itazura. Newly created variants of GFP can shine more brightly and show different colours, such as yellow, cyan, and blue. • 2000–2002: Tsien produced monomeric variants of DsRED, which can glow in shades of red, pink, and orange.