One Japanese and two American scientists won this year’s Nobel Prize for chemistry for taking the ability of some jellyfish to glow green and transforming it into a tool for watching the dance of living cells and the proteins within them.

The three scientists will split the $1.4 million prize awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. 

Osamu Shimomura, an emeritus professor at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, studied the Aequorea Victoria, the jellyfish from which green fluorescent protein is derived. The green fluorescent protein, or G.F.P., was first observed in 1962 in the jellyfish Aequorea Victoria, which drifts in the ocean currents off the west coast of North America. The Japanese scientist identified the protein and put it under ultraviolet light, proving that is glows green.

Dr. Martin Chalfie, of Columbia University, showed that the protein can be used as a tag by inserting the gene that produces the protein into the DNA of an organism. The first experiment showed cells glowing green in a transparent roundworm. Dr. Roger Y. Tsien, of the University of California, helped the other two researchers by making cells glow other colors than green. This way, he allowed scientists to observe more than one process at the same time.

One practice use for this discovery is the one of trying to help people with Alzheimer’s disease. The growth of cancer can also be followed. Even so, researchers have much more work to do before they can actually use this in an efficient way. "This protein has become one of the most important tools used in contemporary bioscience," the Nobel Committee for Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences told the media after the prize was awarded.