Osamu Shimomura of Japan and Americans Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien were honoured for their work on green fluorescent protein, or GFP.Researchers worldwide now use GFP to track such processes as the development of brain cells, the growth of tumours and the spread of cancer cells.It has let them study nerve cell damage from Alzheimer's disease and see how insulin-producing beta cells arise in the pancreas of a growing embryo, for example.The academy compared the impact on science to the invention of the microscope.

By MALCOLM RITTER By Malcolm Ritter The Associated Press NEW YORK Three U.S.-based scientists won a Nobel Prize on Wednesday for turning a glowing green protein from jellyfish into a revolutionary way to watch the tiniest details of life within cells and living creatures.

A TRICK three scientists learned from jellyfish has won them the Nobel Prize for chemistry. Americans Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien and Osamu Shimomura, from Japan, were honoured for their discovery of the green fluorescent protein that allows the creatures to glow.

By Kenneth Chang One Japanese and two American scientists have received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for taking the ability of some jellyfish to glow green and transforming it into a ubiquitous tool of molecular biology to watch the dance of living cells and the proteins within them.

By Dan Vergano Glowing jellyfish have lit the way to 2008's Nobel Prize in chemistry for one Japanese and two American researchers, pioneers in illuminating biological processes inside cells and behind diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's.