Revolutionary Analytical Methods for Biomolecules

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2002 is being shared between scientists in two important fields: mass spectrometry (MS) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The Laureates, John B. Fenn and Koichi Tanaka (for MS) and Kurt Wüthrich (for NMR), have contributed in different ways to the further development of these methods to embrace biological macromolecules. This has meant a revolutionary breakthrough, making chemical biology into the "big science" of our time. Chemists can now rapidly and reliably identify what proteins a sample contains. They can also produce three-dimensional images of protein molecules in solution. Hence scientists can both "see" the proteins and understand how they function in the cells.