Wednesday, October 8, 2008

A Nobel Prize for Acronyms

Roger Tsien won the Nobel prize in Chemistry today for his work on GFP, a resounding affirmation of the role that goofy acronyms play in biophysics.  The Tsien lab gave us such memorable names as "Fluorescein arsenical helix binder" (FlAsH), "resorufin arsencial helix binder" (ReAsH), and its brominated cousin (BrAsH).  I seem to recall being told, back when my advisor was doing a sabbatical in their lab, that they were working on a fluorescein-based histidine binding dye which they were calling "hissy fit", but I can't seem to find any evidence of that in the literature.  In any case, congratulations, and here's to a future filled with puns!

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