The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008 was awarded jointly to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP".
 

They are rewarded for the discovery and characterisation of the green fluorescent protein, for first expressing GFP in fluorescent form in important model organisms and for the development of GFP and its homologues to a universal set of genetic tags for protein localisation, protein movement and protein interactions in the cells of all types of organisms. 
 

Now GFP and its homologues are indispensable in biomedical research, due to the fact that these proteins self-contain a fluorescent chromophore in their peptide chains and they can be expressed in living bodies. The identification of the fluorescent chromophore, however, depended on the GFP. Without the study of aequorin, the chromophore of GFP would have remained unknown and the flourishing of fluorescent proteins would not have occurred.
 

The Prize amount: SEK 10 million to be shared equally between the Laureates