Nobel Prize 2017: Three get Chemistry award for capturing life in atomic detail

Nobel Prize 2017 in Chemistry has been awarded to researchers Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank, and Richard Henderson, for their work that developed cryo-electron microscopy.

Dubochet is affiliated with the University of Lausanne, in Switzerland; Joachim Frank is affiliated with Columbia University in New York; Richard Henderson is affiliated with the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK.

This method has moved biochemistry into a new era," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement on Wednesday awarding the 9 million 2017 Nobel Prize.

"Researchers can now freeze biomolecules mid-movement and visualise processes they have never previously seen, which is decisive for both the basic understanding of life's chemistry and for the development of pharmaceuticals."

The development of cryo-electron microscopy has provide crucial for many areas of research, not least in looking at the Zika virus which causes brain-damage in newborns.

Americans have done pretty well in 2017 Nobel Prize awards, seven of the nine science prizes have gone to researchers from the US.

OneIndia News