STOCKHOLM — Three researchers won a Nobel Prize on Wednesday for giving microscopes much sharper vision than was thought possible, letting scientists peer into living cells with unprecedented detail to seek the roots of disease.
The chemistry prize was awarded to US researchers Eric Betzig and William Moerner and German scientist Stefan Hell. They found ways to use molecules that glow on demand to overcome what was considered a fundamental limitation for optical microscopes.
Betzig, 54, works at Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Ashburn, Va. Hell, 51, is director of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Goettingen, Germany, and works at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. Moerner, 61, is a professor at Stanford University.
Their work, done independently and extending back to the 1980s, led to two techniques that were first demonstrated in 2000 and 2006.
Previously, a calculation published in 1873 was thought to define the limit of how tiny a detail could be revealed by optical microscopes.
‘‘As recently as 15 years ago, it was believed to be theoretically impossible to break this barrier,’’ said Nobel committee member Claes Gustafsson.
The result of their advance is ‘‘really a window into the cell which we didn’t have before,’’ said Catherine Lewis, director of the cell biology and biophysics division of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences in Bethesda, Md.
‘‘You can observe the behavior of individual molecules in living cells in real time.’’
The research of the three has let scientists study diseases such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and Huntington’s at a molecular level, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.
‘‘Due to their achievements, the optical microscope can now peer into the nanoworld,’’ the academy said, giving the $1.1 million award to the three for ‘‘development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy.’’
While scientists can get still finer resolution by using an electron microscope, that device can’t be used to examine cells that are alive.
‘‘You really need to be able to look at living cells because life is animate — it’s what defines life,’’ Betzig said.
Hell said that close look can shed light on disease.
‘‘Any disease, in the end, can be boiled down to a malfunctioning of the cell,’’ he said. ‘‘And in order to understand what a disease actually means, you have to understand the cell and you have to understand the malfunction.’’
Hell has used the technology to examine nerve cells, Moerner studied proteins related to Huntington’s disease, and Betzig tracked cell division inside embryos, the academy said.
Betzig said his reaction to hearing about the prize was ‘‘kind of like 50 percent happiness and 50 percent fear. Because I don’t want my life to change. I really like my life, and I’m busy enough already.’’
Moerner heard the news as he stepped out of a shower in Brazil, where he was attending a conference. The phone call came from his wife. ‘‘I’m incredibly excited and happy to be included with Eric Betzig and Stefan Hell,’’ Moerner told the AP.
Hell, who was born in Romania, said he was ‘‘totally surprised, I couldn’t believe it.’’