Dr Shimomura, who worked at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, isolated this protein in 1962.

ECONOMIST: The 2008 Nobel science prizes

Instead, in 1939 the two researchers exiled themselves to Plymouth, where the Marine Biological Association has a laboratory, and turned to the nerve cells of squid a species that has what are known as giant axons.

ECONOMIST: Andrew Huxley | The