Indian scientist who helped Nobel winners a driver in U.S.

California: It is always the efforts of unsung heroes that help the leaders win. And in the case of this year's winners of Nobel Prize in Chemistry, there is such a not-so-acclaimed hero, namely Douglas C. Prasher, a driver in U.S, reported The New York Times.

Douglas C. Prasher's almost two decades old study on a jellyfish gene gave a foundation to Roger Y. Tsien and Martin Chalfie for developing a revolutionary technique, which lights up the inner workings of living cells, winning them this years Nobel Price and $450,000 each.

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Dr. Prasher had conducted a research on the Aequorea victoria jellyfish and discovered a jellyfish protein used in research, while he was at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts in the early 1990s. When Chalfie and Tsien had contacted Prasher asking about the jellyfish gene, which produces a fluorescent protein, Prasher had generously shared the gene with both of them.

Now driving a courtesy van for a car dealer in Huntsville, AL, to earn $10 an hour, Prasher said he was not bitter or jealous of this year's winning chemistry Nobelists: Dr. Tsien of the University of California, San Diego, Dr. Chalfie of Columbia and Osamu Shimomura, the original discoverer of the jellyfish protein in 1961.

Trained as a biochemist, Dr. Prasher, 57, was interested in the chemistry of how certain animals are able to glow. In the late 1980s, he applied to the National Institutes of Health for a five-year grant to track down the fluorescent protein gene. But the proposal, which included speculation on how the fluorescent protein might be used as a beacon to light up structures in cells, was turned down.

However, a parallel proposal to the American Cancer Society succeeded, giving Dr. Prasher only two years of financing, enough time to isolate the gene, but not pursue any applications. By then, sensing that he would be again turned down, Prasher looked for a new job.

Dr. Prasher then worked for the United States Department of Agriculture, first on Cape Cod and later in Beltsville, Md., developing methods for identifying pests and other insects. Again, he was not happy, forcing him to move to Huntsville, where he worked for a NASA subcontractor that was developing mini-chemistry laboratories, which would be needed as health diagnostic tools for a potential human flight to Mars. Though Prasher loved that job, NASA eliminated the financing for the project. For family reasons, he stayed in Huntsville, which restricted his opportunities.

After a year of unemployment, he started driving the van for Bill Penney Toyota, his job for the last year and a half.

Dr. Prasher also said, perhaps with a bit of surprise even to himself, that he would have been uncomfortable if he had been selected as one of the Nobel winners, nudging aside one of the others. "There are other people who would have deserved it a whole lot more than me. They worked their butts off over their entire lives for science, and I haven't," he said.