STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 3 (UPI) — Cellular biology researcher Yoshinori Ohsumi won the 2016 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his work on cell renewal, the organization announced Monday.
Ohsumi, 71, discovered and explained the natural effects of autophagy, a process by which a cell could destroy its own contents by enclosing it in a membrane, then essentially recycle it for degradation. Little was known of the mechanism until Ohsuni’s experiments with yeast cells in the 1990s in which he demonstrated the phenomenon. He went on to elucidate similarities in the workings in human cellular structure.
Ohsumi was born in Fukuoka, Japan, and received a doctorate from the University of Tokyo before doing research at Rockefeller University in New York. Returning to Japan, he established a research group in 1998, and since 2009 has been a Tokyo Institute of Technology professor.
The Karolinska Institute in Stockholm makes recommendations for Nobel Prize laureates in the fields of medicine or physiology. The announcement was the first in the so-called “Nobel season” this week, in which most of the remaining Nobel Prize winners of 2016 will be announced. The award ceremony will occur in December.
