Re: congratulations to Eric, Stefan and W.E. for Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy

Posted by Andrew York on
URL: http://confocal-microscopy-list.275.s1.nabble.com/Re-congratulations-to-Eric-Stefan-and-W-E-for-Nobel-Prize-in-Chemistry-for-the-development-of-super-y-tp7582742p7582751.html

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I think the list will find this article entertaining:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/10/chemistry_nobel_prize_winners_see_microscope_images_they_made_possible_photos.html

Pay particular attention to the images.

Unrelated: I assume Betzig's award is primarily due to his demonstration of
PALM, and related follow-up work. I assume Hell's is similarly for his
demonstration of STED. What work of Moerner's are they thinking of? Is
there one specific paper/idea, like with Betzig and Hell, or is it for
decades of work on single molecules in general?
On Oct 10, 2014 4:25 AM, "Andreas Schönle" <
[hidden email]> wrote:

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>
> Dear Guy, Nuno, dear list members!
>
> Surely this discussion will now go on for a while but I would like to set a
> few facts straight, so it can be put on solid ground.
>
> 1)
> Stefan Hell was never a student of Chirstoph Cremer. His PhD advisor was
> Prof. S. Hunklinger and both 4pi and STED microscopy were conceived by him
> independently. The principle of STED is completely unrelated to 4pi and 4pi
> has nothing to do with what the Nobel prize was awarded for (see below).
> 2)
> 4pi microscopy is not a super-resolution method (it is diffraction
> limited).
> Christoph Cremer's original proposal to use light coming from all
> directions
> was aimed at increasing lateral resolution and was based on the wrong
> assumption that inverting the light-field of a point source <<lambda by
> means of a hologram could beat the diffraction limit.
> (this neglects the fact that the near field decays exponentially and that
> this cannot be inverted in conventional materials)
> 3)
> Localization is not resolution. Impressive work was done localizing single
> or several light sources separable by spectral properties, stepwise
> bleaching etc. - usually with the goal of measuring distances. But dense
> images can (as of now) only be obtained by time-sequentially switching
> molecules on and off.
> This was first realized for ensembles in STED and molecule-by-molecule in
> PALM/STORM/FPALM.
>
> Again, this is not to diminish anybody's work in the field. Over the years
> I
> have read many articles describing important and inspiring work. And I
> wholeheartedly agree that the field would not be where it is without these
> contributions.
> But when discussing who should be honored for finding the key to circumvent
> the diffraction limit in optical imaging, it is important to identify those
> people that had the right idea, recognized its importance and proved this
> by
> actually putting it to work.
>
> Best regards,
> Andreas
>
> --
> Andreas Schoenle, Dr.
> Abberior Instruments GmbH, D-37077 Goettingen, Germany
>
> phone: [phone]
> fax: [phone]
> http://www.abberior-instruments.com
> mailto:[hidden email]
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]]
> On
> Behalf Of Nuno Moreno
> Sent: Freitag, 10. Oktober 2014 00:19
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: congratulations to Eric, Stefan and W . E. for Nob el P rize
> in
> Chemistry, ³ for t he development of super-reso lved fluores cenc e mi
> croscopy²
>
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>
> Dear Guy
>
> You're absolutely right. I actually sent an internal email (for the
> institute) a few hours after the announcement with, among other stuff,
> this:
>
> "As always there are many others that should be on the laureates list but
> one needed the final click. In my opinion Cremer from Heidelberg university
> should be one of them ...."
>
> Nuno Moreno
>
>
>
>
>
> On 09 Oct 2014, at 02:16, Guy Cox <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> > *****
> > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your
> posting.
> > *****
> >
> > The three names is always a problem - especially when the prize is
> awarded
> essentially for two different techniques.  Christoph Cremer (Stefan's
> supervisor) could well also feel he'd been passed over.
> >
> >                                                            Guy
> >
>