Award-Winning Woods Hole Scientist Dies

WOODS HOLE, MA – A Nobel Prize winner who spent nearly 20 years at Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole died Friday in Nagasaki, Japan. Osamu Shimomura was 90 years old.

Shimomura worked at the laboratory from 1982 until his retirement in 2001. Prior to that, he served as a professor at Nagoya University and Princeton University and was a professor emeritus at Boston University, according to the Japan Times.

Shimomura discovered and is0lated green fluorescent protein from Aequorea jellyfish, which became a tool in light microscopy that allowed scientists to see cellular components and processes that could not be seen before, according to the Marine Biological Laboratory. He and his wife collected 10,000 jellyfish samples by hand throughout their career.

Shimomura shares the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Martin Chalfie of Columbia University and Roger Tsien of the University of California, San Diego.

"Osamu Shimomura was the first ever to purify one important protein and substance after another that are responsible for bioluminescence (using a vast number of organisms that he personally collected)," MBL Distinguished Scientist Shinya Inoué, a longtime colleague and friend of the Shimomuras, said in a statement. "He selflessly supplied the purified material to scholars around the world. He and his wife, Akemi, kept to the bench for so many years without seeking glory or public recognition."

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