Yoshinori Ohsumi was on Monday awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his research on autophagy - or understanding how damaged cells recycle themselves. "Autophagy has been known for over 50 years but its fundamental importance in physiology and medicine was only recognised after Yoshinori Ohsumi's paradigm-shifting research in the 1990's," the Nobel jury said.
Here are five things that you must know about the Japanese scientist and his work.
1. Ohsumi was born in southwest Fukuoka in Japan near the end of World War II, and was interested in chemistry at first. However, according to a 2012 interview, he then switched his focus to molecular biology.
2. Youngest of four brothers, Ohsumi received a PhD from the University of Tokyo in 1974 and spent several years at Rockefeller University in New York before coming back to Japan in the late 1980s.
3. 71-year-old Ohsumi is the 25th Japanese person to win a Nobel Prize, and the fourth in the medicine category, according to local media.
4. Ohsumi's work focussed on how cells break down and recycle their content, called autophagy, and has major implications for health and diseases. It could lead to a better understanding of diseases like Cancer, Parkinson's and Type 2 diabetes. Ohsumi used baker's yeast to identify genes essential for autophagy.
5. Autophagy is quite like the human body’s internal recycling system that tracks down scrap cells, takes away the useful components to generate energy or form a new cell. It is crucial in the prevention of cancerous growths, and, by maintaining a healthy metabolism, helps in protection from diseases like diabetes. Disturbances in the autophagy machinery can cause several diseases and genetic disorders.
6. Yoshinori Ohsumi has won numerous accolades previously as well. He won the Fujihara Award, from the Fujihara Foundation of Science (2005), Japan Academy Prize from Japan Academy (2006), Asahi Prize (2009), Kyoto Prize (2012), Gairdner Foundation International Award (2015), International Prize for Biology (2015), Keio Medical Science Prize (2015) and Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences (2016).
7. Talking about winning the Nobel Prize, Ohsumi told a press briefing in Tokyo that it was his childhood dream, "but it has not been the focus of my concern since I got into research -- I don't like competing". He also said he was worried about budget cutbacks in scientific research. In a separate interview with broadcaster NHK, he said he had "always wanted to do something that other people wouldn’t do". "I have fun doing what others don't do, rather than something that everybody is flocking to, he added. "I thought the breakdown (of cells) would be interesting, and that was my start," he said.
