The 2016 Nobel Prize for Medicine honors the study of cell self-destruction

The 2016 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi for his research on cell self-destruction and regeneration mechanisms.

Mr. Yoshinori Ohsumi was born in 1945 in Fukuoka (Japan) and is currently a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology.

The announcement of the Nobel Council of the Karolinska Institute of Sweden says the autophagy process is the fundamental mechanism of the cell. The announcement also said Ohsumi's study showed a self-destruct mechanism to control basic biomedical features when cell components are degraded and regenerated.

"Ohsumi's findings lead to new thinking in the understanding of cell regeneration mechanisms," said the Nobel Committee of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden when announcing the prize of 8 million Swedish crowns (equivalent to $ 933,000).

The process of self-destruct can also quickly provide fuel and energy for building new cellular components. This is an important mechanism for cells to respond to starvation or other forms of stress.

When an infection occurs, cell self-destruction can prevent bacteria and viruses from penetrating through the cell. This process also contributes to embryo development and cell differentiation.

Mr. Yoshinori Ohsumi.(Photo: Titech).

The self-destruct process has been known for more than 50 years but its importance for biomedical and medicinal medicine has only been recognized after studies by Yoshinori Ohsumi in the 1990s.

He used bread yeast to determine the gene needed during the self-destruct process. After that, he dug deep into clarifying these mechanisms in yeast.

Ohsumi's discovery opens up a new model of human understanding of how cells reproduce its components. Mutations in the mechanism of self-destruction can lead to illness, including cancer and neurological diseases.

He is the 23rd-century Japanese scientist to win the Nobel Prize, and is the sixth Japanese to be honored in the Biomedical category.

Earlier, Thomson Reuters had predicted that this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine would be awarded to studies that could help treat cancer therapy.

Last year, scientists from the US, Japan and China were honored at the Nobel Biomedicine Prize for their research into resistance to parasitic worms and malaria. They are Mr. William C. Campbell (born in 1930) working at Drew University (New Jersey, USA), Mr. Satoshi Omura (born 1935) from Kitasato University (Tokyo, Japan); and Ms. Youyou Tu (born in 1930) from the Traditional Chinese Academy of Medicine.

The Nobel Prize for Medicine is the first prize to be awarded in the Nobel series. Since 1901, the Nobel Committee has awarded the Biomedical Prize to 106 individuals and collectives. However, only 12 women won this award.

The youngest person to receive this honor is Frederick Banting (1891 - 1941). He received the prize at age 32 with his research on insulin. Meanwhile, the oldest scientist who received the award was Peyton Rous (1879-1970) at the age of 87 thanks to his research on cancer-causing viruses.