The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decided in Stockholm Wednesday to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2014 to Eric Betzig and William Moerner both from the US and Stefan Hell from Germany "for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy." The Academy in a statement noted that "for a long time optical microscopy was held back by a presumed limitation: that it would never obtain a better resolution than half the wavelength of light." Betzig, Hell and Moerner are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 "for having bypassed this limit. Due to their achievements the optical microscope can now peer into the nanoworld," it said.
In what has become known as nanoscopy, scientists visualize the pathways of individual molecules inside living cells. They can track proteins involved in Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Huntington's diseases as they aggregate; they follow individual proteins in fertilized eggs as these divide into embryos.
The three winners will share prize money of eight million kronor (USD 1.1 million).