The Nobel Committee said the Prize has been awarded to him "for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy."

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi “for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy.” The professor is currently at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Announcing the Prize in Stockholm, the Nobel Committee said in a statement that the cell biologist “discovered and elucidated mechanisms underlying autophagy, a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components.”

The 1974 Medicine laureate, Christian de Duve, coined the term autophagy (meaning “self eating”) in 1963. "This concept emerged during the 1960s, 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," said the statement.

The 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded for discoveries concerning novel therapies against river blindness, lymphatic filariasis and malaria to William C. Campbell, Satoshi Omura and Youyou Tu.</s>STOCKHOLM/LONDON (Reuters) - Japan’s Yoshinori Ohsumi won the 2016 Nobel prize for medicine for ground-breaking experiments with yeast which exposed a key mechanism in the body’s defenses where cells degrade and recycle their components.

Understanding the science behind the process, called “autophagy” or “self-eating”, has led to a better understanding of diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s and type 2 diabetes, the prize committee said in its statement on Monday.

“Ohsumi’s discoveries led to a new paradigm in our understanding of how the cell recycles its content,” it said.

The Physiology or Medicine prize, the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year, is worth 8 million Swedish crowns ($933,000).

Ohsumi, born in 1945 in Fukuoka, Japan, has been a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology since 2009. He told Kyodo News agency he was “extremely honored” to get the prize.

In a separate interview with broadcaster NHK, he said he had “always wanted to do something that other people wouldn’t do”.

“I thought the breakdown (of cells) would be interesting, and that was my start,” he said.

Yoshinori Ohsumi, a professor of Tokyo Institute of Technology, attends a news conference after he won the Nobel medicine prize at Tokyo Institute of Technology in Tokyo, Japan, October 3, 2016. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hooni

Ohsumi’s work - carried out in the 1990s and described by commentators as “paradigm-shifting” and “pioneering” - included locating the genes that regulate autophagy. This is important for medicine because it helps show why errors in these genes can contribute to a range of diseases.

David Rubinsztein, deputy director of Cambridge University's Institute for Medical Research, said Ohsumi had provided scientists around the world with "critical tools" to help them understand how disrupted autophagy can contribute to illnesses including infectious diseases, cancers and neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington’s and Parkinson’s.

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Chister Hoog, a professor at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, told Reuters the work helped explain crucial processes in human development, from growing up, to aging to succumbing to disease.

“In the very early stages (of a human’s development) your organs and your whole body is constantly being made over again – you are growing. So you need to get rid of the old stuff and generate new structures,” he said.

“When you undergo aging, you have structures that have to be taken away and this – autophagy – is the principle that gets rid of them.

“If you affect this system – the genes and proteins involved in autophagy – you no longer can take care of the waste, and once it accumulates you will get some type of disease.”

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This year, the Karolinska Institute, which awards the Nobel medicine prize, has been immersed in a scandal over the hiring of a controversial surgeon. The Swedish government dismissed several members of the board in September.

Prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel. ($1 = 8.5776 Swedish crowns)

(This version of the story fixes the typo in the name of the Karolinska professor)</s>Japan's Yoshinori Ohsumi has won the 2016 Nobel prize for medicine for ground-breaking experiments which exposed a key mechanism in the body's defenses where cells degrade and recycle their components</s>Japan's Yoshinori Ohsumi has won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy.</s>STOCKHOLM — Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi was awarded this year's Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries related to the degrading and recycling of cellular components.

The Karolinska Institute honored Ohsumi for "brilliant experiments" in the 1990s on autophagy, the machinery with which cells recycle their content.

Disrupted autophagy has been linked to various diseases including Parkinson's, diabetes and cancer, the institute said.

Though the concept has been known for more than 50 years, its "fundamental importance in physiology and medicine was only recognized after Yoshinori Ohsumi's paradigm-shifting research in the 1990s," Karolinska said in its citation.

Ohsumi was born in 1945 in Fukuoka, Japan. He is currently a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

It was the 107th award in the medicine category since the first Nobel Prizes were handed out in 1905.

Last year's prize was shared by three scientists who developed treatments for malaria and other tropical diseases.

The announcements continue with physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. The economics and literature awards will be announced next week.</s>Yoshinori Ohsumi of Japan on Monday won the Nobel Medicine Prize for his work on autophagy — a process whereby cells "eat themselves" — which when disrupted can cause Parkinson's and diabetes.

Autophagy is a fundamental process in cell physiology with major implications for human health and disease.

The process is essential for the orderly degradation and recycling of damaged cell parts and its failure is believed to be responsible for ageing and cell damage.

Researchers first observed during the 1960s that the cell could destroy its own contents by wrapping them up in membranes and transporting them to a recycling compartment called the lysosome.

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

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

Ohsumi's discoveries "have led to a new paradigm in the understanding of how the cell recycles its contents," the jury said.

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

Ohsumi, 71, received a PhD from the University of Tokyo in 1974. He is currently a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

The prize comes with eight million Swedish kronor (around $936,000).

Last year, Irish-born William Campbell of the US, Satoshi Omura of Japan and China's Tu Youyou won the prestigious award for their discoveries of treatments against parasites.</s>The Nobel prize in medicine has been awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi for his discoveries on how the body’s cells detoxify and repair themselves.

The Japanese cell biologist will receive the prestigious 8m Swedish kronor (£718,000) award for “mechanisms for autophagy”.

Autophagy is essentially the body’s internal recycling program - scrap cells are hunted down and the useful parts are stripped out to generate energy or create new cells. It is a crucial process to prevent cancerous growths, and, by maintaining a healthy metabolism, helps protect against conditions like diabetes.



Disturbances in the autophagy machinery have been linked to Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes, cancer and several age-related disorders. Mutations in autophagy genes can cause genetic disease. Intense research is now underway to develop drugs that can target autophagy in various diseases.

The word autophagy originates from two Greek words meaning “self-eating”. This concept emerged during the 1960s, 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 ground-breaking experiments in the early 1990s, 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 human cells.

Autophagy was not a fashionable subject when he started out as a scientist, according to Ohsumi. “I am not very competitive, so I always look for a new subject to study, even if it is not so popular,” he said in a 2012 interview. “If you start from some sort of basic, new observation, you will have plenty to work on.”

Professor David Rubinsztein, deputy director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research at the University of Cambridge, said that because autophagy is conserved across organisms - from yeast to humans - Ohsumi’s discoveries had provided deep insights into the basic biology underpinning infectious diseases, cancers, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s.

“I’m very happy he’s got this year’s Nobel prize, it’s very well deserved,” he said. “His lab mainly works in yeast. They did the initial screens that enabled the discovery of key genes that are involved in autophagy. So many other labs have exploited his discoveries, directly or indirectly, to see why it’s important in diseases.”

Last year, the prize was shared by three scientists for discoveries that helped doctors fight malaria and infections caused by roundworm parasites.

The Chinese chemist, Tu Youyou, was recognised for her discovery of artemisinin, one of the most effective treatments for malaria. Two other researchers, Satoshi Ōmura, an expert in soil microbes at Kitasato University, and William Campbell, an Irish-born parasitologist at Drew University in New Jersey, shared the other half of the prize, for the discovery of avermectin, a treatment for roundworm parasites.

The winners of the physics, chemistry and peace prizes are to be announced later this week. The economics prize will be announced on Monday 10 October.</s>STOCKHOLM: Yoshinori Ohsumi of Japan on Monday won the Nobel Medicine Prize for his work on autophagy—a process whereby cells “eat themselves”—which when disrupted can cause Parkinson’s and diabetes, the jury said.

“Mutations in autophagy genes can cause disease, and the autophagic process is involved in several conditions including cancer and neurological disease,” it said. AFP</s>Japanese microbiologist Yoshinori Ohsumi on Monday won the 2016 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his work on cell autophagy, a process that helps the body remove unwanted proteins but can also lead to conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Ohsumi, 71, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology is credited with discovering the mechanisms that allow cells to break down and recycle unwanted components. They enclose the item in a sack and then transport it to a recycling unit known as a lysosome for destruction.

“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,” the Nobel committee said in its citation.

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

It said his work led to understanding of the “fundamental importance” of autophagy in many physiological processes, such as in the adaptation to starvation or response to infection.

Ohsumi is the 25th Japanese to win a Nobel Prize, including individuals who later obtained citizenship of other countries.

He is the fourth to win the medicine prize.

Ohsumi is expected to attend the Nobel awards ceremony on Dec. 10 in Stockholm, where he will also receive a prize of 8 million kroner (¥95 million).

In March last year, he was awarded a 2015 Canada Gairdner International Award, also for his work on autophagy. His prize totaled 100,000 Canadian dollars (¥9.6 million yen).

It is the third consecutive year for a Japanese to win a Nobel Prize.

Last year, Tokyo-based microbiologist Satoshi Omura shared the Nobel medicine prize for his work on a therapy for debilitating diseases caused by parasitic worms.

Omura, a professor emeritus of Tokyo’s Kitasato University, shared the honor with William C. Campbell of Drew University in New Jersey and Youyou Tu of the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

The Nobel committee honored Omura and Campbell for their work on a drug that has led to sharply lower incidences of river blindness and lymphatic filiarisis, commonly known as elephantiasis.

Tu was honored for her work on artemisinin, a drug that has reduced malaria mortality.

The 2016 Nobel prize season continues this week and next with other science awards and those for peace, literature and economics being awarded.

Predicting the winners is a game of chance — fans of Japanese pop author Haruki Murakami have routinely had their expectations dashed — and the selection process is nothing if not opaque. Shortlists are never released. Nominees only become known if their supporters announce their submissions.

On Friday, attention turns to Oslo, where the prestigious peace prize is awarded.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has received a record 376 nominations this year, almost a hundred more than the previous record set in 2014.

Those in Europe grappling with the migrant crisis might be a traditional choice for the prize, as would the brokers of two recent accords: the Iranian nuclear accord and the peace deal in Colombia with leftist FARC rebels.

In a shock upset however, Colombian voters rejected the peace deal by a razor-thin majority in a referendum on Sunday.</s>Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi speaks on Monday after being awarded the Nobel prize in medicine for his discoveries on how the body’s cells detoxify and repair themselves. Ohsumi says there is no higher honour. He was speaking at a news conference in Tokyo
• Yoshinori Ohsumi wins Nobel prize in medicine for work on autophagy
Japan's Yoshinori Ohsumi wins the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for experiments with yeast which exposed a key mechanism called autophagy in the body's defenses where cells degrade and recycle their components.