How Bad Luck and Bad Networking Cost Douglas Prasher a Nobel Prize (2011)

The most surprising thing is that the whole chain of events seems to have been nobody's intent. From wikipedia:

Chalfie and Tsien invited Prasher and his wife, Virginia Eckenrode, to attend the Nobel Prize ceremony, as their guests and at their expense. All three of the 2008 Chemistry laureates thanked Prasher in their speeches.

In June 2010, Prasher was finally able to return to science, working for Streamline Automation in Huntsville until December 2011, then from 2012 on, in Roger Tsien's lab at the University of California in San Diego.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher)

As someone who got my PhD in Roger Tsien's lab at that time and attended the Nobel ceremony, I strongly agree with this comment, that it was no one's intent. Many people interpret this story as though Tsien or Chalfie stole something from Doug Prasher, which isn't true. This is more a story that science is hard, people don't always follow through on projects, and there is also some luck involved. There are plenty of "fourth" people who didn't get Nobel Prizes.