Congratulations to Jacques Dubochet, Richard Henderson and Joachim Frank for being awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution”.

This prize to Dubochet, Henderson and Frank is extremely well-deserved, and we were fortunate to have Dubochet and Henderson, along with other prominent cryo-electron microscopists, here in Umeå for the inauguration of our new cryo-EM facility earlier this year. In the midst of the celebrations it may be worth pointing out that which is obvious to us as practising cryo-electron microscopists: today’s prize is a culmination of a collaborative, decades-long international effort where dozens of mathematicians, physicists, chemists, and biologists have made seminal theoretical and experimental contributions without being awarded the prize today. Nevertheless, today we celebrate Jacques Dubochet, Richard Henderson and Joachim Frank. Congratulations!