Martin Chalfie, Nobel Prize winner in 2008, visits Universidad Nacional de Colombia

This important American scientist will be one of the main figures of the event. It is important to mention that Chalfie received the Nobel with his compatriot Roger Y. Tsien and the Japanese Osamu Shimomura for their development of a green fluorescent protein, the GFP, which is used as a biological molecular marker.

This discovery is the tool that has allowed scientists around the world performing investigations related to the observation of the development of nerve cells and the extension of cancer in cells.

"The green fluorescent protein (GFP) was observed for the first time in 1962 in the jellyfish Aequorea victoria. Since then, it has become one of the most important tools in contemporary biological science," said an official statement from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in charge of giving the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Martin Chalfie was born in 1947; he is a former student of Harvard University and is currently working as a biology professor at University of Columbia, in the state of New York (USA).

This scientist will be in charge of the opening ceremony at the Latin-American Congress of Chemistry 2010, next to the president of Universidad Nacional de Colombia, the chemist Moisés Wasserman, next Monday, September 27th at the Convention Center Getsemaní in Cartagena de Indias.

In the morning, a few hours before traveling to Cartagena, this important scientist will be in a conference at Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota, in which he will meet with students and researchers.

In addition, important chemists from Latin-America, Europe, Japan, and Africa will attend to this event. In this version, the motto is "chemical industry and the natural resources, a world responsibility".