Geneticist Martin Chalfie was named today one of three awardees of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Chalfie, along with Roger Tsien at the University of California San Diego and Osamu Shimomura of Woods Hole, was awarded the prize "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP." Chalfie is the chair of the department of biological sciences and the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Biological Sciences.

Chalfie's paper describing the uses of GFP appeared 14 years ago (Chalfie et al., 1994). Since then, GFP has become a fundamental tool of cell biology, developmental biology, genetics, neurobiology and the medical sciences.