Two Americans, one of Chinese origin, and a Japanese scientist won the Nobel Prize in chemistry Wednesday for discovering and developing a glowing jellyfish protein that revolutionized the ability to study disease and normal development in living organisms.

Americans Roger Tsien and Martin Chalfie, as well as Japan's Osamu Shimomura shared the prize for their work on green fluorescent protein (GFP), the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

The academy compared the impact of GFP on science to the invention of the microscope. For the past decade, the academy said, the protein has been "a guiding star for biochemists, biologists, medical scientists and other researchers".

Roger Tsien is the one of Chinese origin. He is a nephew to Qian Xuesen, the founder of China's space science, who is widely regarded as the "father of the country's aerospace" and "king of rockets".

Tsien, 56, is a professor at the University of California, San Diego. He developed GFP-like proteins that produced a variety of colors so that multiple proteins or cells can be followed simultaneously.