The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

To : Yoshinori Ohsumi ( japan )

(for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy)

Summary :

·         This year's Nobel Laureate discovered and elucidated mechanisms                         underlying autophagy, a fundamental process for degrading and recycling 

    cellular components.  

·         It is a crucial process. During starvation, cells break down proteins and nonessential components and reuse them for energy. Cells also use autophagy to destroy invading viruses and bacteria, sending them off for recycling. And cells use autophagy to get rid of damaged structures.

·         The word autophagy originates from the Greek words auto-, meaning "self", and phagein, meaning "to eat". 

·         Thus,autophagy denotes "self eating". This concept emerged during the 1960's, when researchers first observed that the cell could destroy its own contents by enclosing it in membranes, forming sack-like vesicles that were transported to a recycling compartment, called the lysosome, for degradation.

·         Difficulties in studying the phenomenon meant that little was known until, in a series of brilliant experiments in the early 1990's, Yoshinori Ohsumi used baker's yeast to identify genes essential for autophagy.

·         He then went on to elucidate the underlying mechanisms for autophagy in yeast and showed that similar sophisticated machinery is used in our cells.

·         Ohsumi's discoveries led to a new paradigm in our understanding of how the cell recycles its content.

·         His discoveries opened the path to understanding the fundamental importance of autophagy in many physiological processes, such as in the adaptation to starvation or response to infection.

·         Mutations in autophagy genes can cause disease, and the autophagic process is involved in several conditions including cancer and neurological disease.

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