Marine biologist Osamu Shimomura (下村 脩) has passed away at the age of 90. Dr. Shimomura shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his isolation of green fluorescent protein. Dr. Shimomura purified the 26.9 kD protein from local jellyfish (Aequorea victoria) collected off the FHL docks. A large number of jellyfish were collected with shallow dip-nets. After failing to isolate luciferin and lucferase, two molecules that were thought to cause bioluminesence in all species including jellyfish, Dr. Shimomura started to search for an alternative. Apparently, Dr. Shimomura’s Princeton supervisor (Dr. Frank Johnson) strongly disagreed and preferred to continue pursuing luciferin/luciferase purifcation. The disagreement between the two was so sharp that the two scientists worked awkwardly at the same lab table each following their own path of inquiry(1).
Sculpture of GFP protein structure in front of the main office at Friday Harbor Labs
After some contemplation while floating in a rowboat in the harbor, Dr. Shimomura decided to test the performance of the putative photoprotein over a range of pH. Finding that the activity was inactivated at low pH gave him a valuable tool to isolate the bioluminescent substance. Eventually, he identified the now-familiar GFP, which glows green when exposed to light in the blue (as emitted by another photoprotein in A. victoria called aequorin) to ultraviolet range and is used as a reporter of expression with many uses in fields of cell biology, development, and physiology.
Shimomura’s biography details his amazing rise from WWII Japan to America and back again.
- Osamu, S., & Sachi, S. (2017). Luminous Pursuit: Jellyfish, GFP, and the Unforeseen Path to the Nobel Prize. World Scientific.