American scientist and Nobel prize winner Eric Betzig talks to journalist prior to a lecture at the Helmholz center in Munich October 8, 2014. U.S. citizens Eric Betzig and William Moerner and Germany's Stefan Hell won the 2014 Nobel Prize for Chemistry on Wednesday for smashing the size barrier in optical microscopes, allowing researchers to see individual molecules inside living cells. [Photo/Agencies]

Nobel discovery opens window onto Alzheimer's disease

Three scientists share 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics

But the three scientists were able to break that limit by using molecules that glow on command. The advance took optical microscopy into a new dimension that made it possible to study the interplay between molecules inside cells, including the aggregation of disease-related proteins, the academy said.

Hell has used these methods to study nerve cells to get a better understanding of brain synapses; Moerner has studied proteins related to Huntington's disease; and Betzig has tracked cell division inside embryos, the academy said.

"I'm convinced that as a result of this discovery, as a result of the fact that we can see details at much higher spatial resolution, we will find out much quicker what is going on in the cell if a disease emerges," Hell said.

"Any disease, in the end, can be boiled down to a malfunctioning of the cell. And in order to understand what a disease actually means, you have to understand the cell and you have to understand the malfunction."

Moerner said scientists can now tell whether individual molecules are different or the same.

"It's very much like asking whether they all march to the same drummer or not," Moerner told the AP. "When you can watch one by one, then we are able to observe exactly when it changes from one state to another."