The Nobel Prize in Chemistry announced Wednesday was awarded to three scientists for developing microscopes with the ability to zoom in on the minutest living cells and track how disease carrying cells infect other healthy cells.

The winners are Americans Eric Betzig and William Moerner and German, Stefan Hell. They were awarded the Prize for their outstanding achievement in microscopy, said the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

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The Academy added their hard work has propelled optical microscopy into the nanodimension. The Nobel Laureates will share the US$1.1 million prize.

With the advent of optical microscopy, scientists can now observe cells at a remarkable molecular level. This capability enables them to further study nerve synapses found inside the brain and track proteins in diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

This ground breaking accomplishment by these three scientists pave way for advances in the study of cellular processes in the most powerful and minutest way possible.

This invention is a huge advance in research that allows scientists to observe living organisms under a microscope without their having to destroy the sample, said Anders Hagfeldt, a Swedish physical chemist.

Hagfeldt adds it's now possible to observe these cells and their processes so they give us a glimpse of how molecules interact with each other and how life evolves on a cellular level.

The first Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Jacobus Henricus van't Hoff, a Dutch physical and organic chemist, who discovered the laws in chemical dynamics and osmotic pressure in solutions.

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