Alabama Man Gypped Out Of Nobel Prize

Douglas Prasher says he's not bitter even though he's now driving the courtesy van at Toyota dealership.

By: Jamie Burch | WKRG-TV
Published: October 10, 2008

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) - Douglas Prasher is not bitter that his
name is not on this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry even though his
research helped point the winning scientists in the right
direction.
And he's not bitter that instead of doing research in a lab,
he's now driving the courtesy van at Bill Penney Toyota in
Huntsville.
The 57-year-old Prasher says it doesn't bother him.
Prasher was working as a young scientist at the University of
Georgia and later at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in
Massachusetts when he isolated and copied the gene that makes the
mysterious Aequoria Victoria jellyfish glow.
It was a glow he believed could possibly be used to highlight
molecular functions that otherwise would be invisible to
scientists.
Prasher's research grant ran out and he said he gave a copy of
the gene to scientist Martin Chalfie of Columbia University and to
Roger Tsien, a researcher at the University of California, San
Diego.
Chalfie, Tsien and another scientist, Osamu Shimomura won the
Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for helping turn the substance
that lights up the jellyfish into a vital biotechnology tool.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

Alabama Man Gypped Out Of Nobel Prize

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