The Nobel committee said the technique, cryo-electron microscopy, produces “detailed images of life’s complex machineries in atomic resolution.”



“Soon there are no more secrets,” said Sara Snogerup Linse, a professor of physical chemistry at Lund University in Sweden who chaired the committee for the chemistry prize. “Now we can see the intricate details of the biomolecules in every corner of our cells, in every drop of our body fluids.”

Dr. Henderson said during a news briefing in Cambridge that he was delighted to share the prize.

He was at a conference listening to a talk when he was called by the Swedish Academy of Science, which administers the prizes.

“I rejected the phone call,” he said. “Then it rang again.”

He also recognized others who had contributed to the technique’s development.

“I think the feeling is that the three of us who have been awarded the prize are sort of acting on behalf of the whole field,” Dr. Henderson said. “It’s kind of a worldwide effort that’s just now come to fruition.”