美德三人荣获2017诺贝尔化学奖

Two Americans and a German won the Nobel Prize in chemistry this year for their work on optical microscopy that has opened up our understanding of molecules by allowing us to see how they work close up.

两名美国及一名德国科学家荣获了今年的诺贝尔化学奖，以表彰他们在光学显微技术领域取得的成就，这一成就让人们通过看到分子之间如何紧密的工作而更加了解它们。

The winners are Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner, the Nobel committee in Sweden announced Wednesday.

诺贝尔委员会于周三宣布：获奖者分别是埃里克·白兹格，斯特凡·W·赫尔以及威廉姆·E·莫尔纳尔。

Back in 1873, science believed it had reached a limit in how much more of a detailed picture a microscope could provide. At the time, microscopist Ernst Abbe said the maximum resolution had been attained.

早在1873年，科学家相信光学显微技术已经达到一种极限：显微镜已经无法提供更为精细的图像了。同时，显微镜学者恩斯特·阿贝认为光学显微镜分辨率达到了一个物理极限。

This year's winners proved that contention wrong.

而今年诺贝尔的获奖者证明了这个观点是错误的。

"Due to their achievements, the optical microscope can now peer into the nanoworld," the committee said.

“由于他们的贡献，我们可以利用光学显微镜对纳米世界一探究竟，”委员会说。

The importance can't be overemphasized: Now, scientists can see how proteins in fertilized eggs divide into embryos, or they can track proteins involved in Alzheimer's or Parkinson's diseases, the committee said.

还有怎么强调也不过分的是：如今科学家可以跟踪受精卵在分裂形成胚胎时蛋白质的变化过程，他们还能追踪阿兹海默症和帕金森病患者体内相关蛋白的累积情况，委员会说。

Hell, of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, and German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, both in Germany, developed a way to use two laser beams to make individual molecules glow on and off.

斯特凡·W·赫尔，作为哥廷根马克斯普朗克生物物理化学研究所的主任和海德堡德国癌症研究中心的部门主任发展了一种方法：使用两束激光，其中用一束激光激发荧光分子发光，再用另一束激光消除掉纳米尺寸以外的所有荧光。

Speaking to the Nobel committee by phone after the prize was announced, Hell said the development of nanoscopy was "very important to life scientists" because the use of focused light is the only way to see how the body works at acellular level.

在宣告获奖之后，和诺贝尔委员的通话中，赫尔提到，纳米显微学对于生命科学家来说是十分重要的。因为聚集光束使用是唯一可以让我们看见身体如何在细胞水平状态下工作的方法。

He said he was "totally surprised" by the call from the Nobel committee and that it took a while for the news to sink in.

赫尔说，对于接到诺贝尔委员会的电话他感到十分震惊，他用了很长的时间使自己平复。

Betzig, of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, in Ashburn, Virginia, and Moerner, of Stanford University in California, worked separately to develop the basis for single-molecule microscopy.

弗吉尼亚州阿什伯恩市霍华德·休斯医学研究所的研究人员埃里克·白兹格，和加利福尼亚州斯坦福大学教授莫尔纳尔，各自独立地做出了单分子荧光显微术。

This uses light to make individual molecules glow and allows a dense super-image to be resolved at the nanolevel.

这种技术是利用光使单个分子发出荧光，并得到了一幅纳米级别的超高密度图片。

Committee chairman Sven Lidin said that thanks to their development of super-resolution fluorescence microscopy, cells could be studied close up and the boundary between chemistry and biology had blurred.

委员会会长斯文·列丁说，多亏了他们对于超高分辨率荧光显微技术的发展，细胞可以更深入的被研究，化学和生物学的分界线也变得不那么明显了。

"Guesswork has turned into hard facts and obscurity has turned into clarity," he added. “

臆测渐渐成为现实，模糊也逐渐明朗化。”斯文•列丁说。

Last year's prize in chemistry rewarded three scientists, Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel, for work leading to the computer programs used today to predict the outcomes of very complex chemical reactions.

去年的诺贝尔化学奖授予了三位科学家，马丁•卡普拉斯、迈克尔•莱维特和亚利耶，因利用电脑程序来预测复杂化学反应结果而分享奖项。