The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 for Stefan Hell

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 for Stefan Hell

Stefan Hell received Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 for his pioneering work in the field of ultra-high resolution fluorescence microscopy. He shares the award with his american colleagues Eric Betzig and William E. Moerner. Stefan Hell succeeded in radically overcoming the resolution limit of conventional optical microscopes – a breakthrough that has enabled new ground-breaking discoveries in biological and medical research.

Three Nobel Prizes have been awarded so far for outstanding research carried out at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry – one in each generation of scientists. Manfred Eigen received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1967, followed by Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann, who were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1991. Stefan Hell, winning the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, is the youngest Nobel laureate of the institute and the 18th Nobel Prize winner of the Max Planck Society.


Portrait of Stefan Hell

Outsmarting Optical Boundaries
Trying to controvert a seemingly incontrovertible law is a hard job. And Stefan Hell discovered just how hard when he attempted to thwart the resolution limit of optical microscopes. Initially, his ideas fell on deaf ears. Today, however, Stefan Hell is a Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and since 2014, Nobel laureate. (MaxPlanckResearch, June 19, 2009)
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Pioneers of Science - Digital Story of the Nobel Prize laureates of the Max Planck Society

Pioneers of Science - Nobel Prize Laureate Stefan W. Hell
The smallest details, mere nanometers in size, can now be displayed in all their molecular detail using optical microscopes. And this in living cells, in real time! For developing STED microscopy, in 2014 Stefan Hell is awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
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Press Conference on October 8, 2014

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