American scientists Eric Betzig and William Moerner and Germany's Stefan W. Hell have won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the development of microscopy that allows scientists to see molecules inside living cells.
One of the trio, Stefan W. Hell, carried out initial microscopy research at the University of Turku where he was group leader in the department of Medical Physics from 1993 to 1996. According to his friend and colleague, University of Turku professor Pekka Hänninen, he and Hell also received some early funding for the project from the Academy of Finland.
“The first tests on the topic were carried out in Turku, while the actual imaging methods and the final product phase took place in Göttingen, Germany,” says Hänninen.
Hänninen and Hell worked together in Germany at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s.
“Stefan came to work at the same laboratory (where I was in Germany) and he was full of new ideas. When it was time for me to return to Finland in 1992, Stefan was still looking for funding, which was nowhere to be found. Nobody believed in his ideas,” says Hänninen.
Hänninen and Hell decided to apply for funding for the initial phases of the microscopy project from the Finnish Academy. They received it in the beginning of 1993.
“I did my dissertation on the project in 1995. Stefan published with the authors of two other dissertations in 1994-95 in publications on the work that eventually led to the invention that won this Nobel prize," he says.
Hell lived in Finland until 1997 when he moved to Göttlingen’s Max Planck Institute, where he works today.
Hänninen, who is close friends with Hell, says the Nobel prize win was not a surprise, as Hell had been pegged to win for some time.
"This prize is a big deal for us in Turku," says Hänninen, adding that it has made many people very happy and very proud.
