4 October, 2016

2016 Nobel Prize: Yoshinori Ohsumi from Japan awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine

Yoshinori Ohsumi is a Japanese cell biologist who specialises in autophagy and is a professor in Tokyo Institute of Technology ‘s Frontier Research Center. Today, Ohsumi has been awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy(Autophagy is an intracellular degradation system that delivers cytoplasmic constituents to the lysosome. Despite its simplicity, recent progress has demonstrated that autophagy plays a wide variety of physiological and pathophysiological roles, which are sometimes complex). Ohsumi, 71, of the Tokyo Institute of Technology discovered the mechanisms that allow cells to break down and recycle unwanted components.The concept was first studied closely in the 1960s when cells were observed destroying their own contents by enclosing the item in a form of sack and then transporting it to a recycling unit known as the lysosome for destruction.The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet decided to award the prize to Ohsumi as his discoveries led to a new paradigm in the ‘understanding of how the cell recycles its content’. Here’s a list of other awards he has received till date: 

·          Fujihara Award, Fujihara Foundation of Science (2005)

·         Japan Academy Prize, Japan Academy (2006)

·         Asahi Prize, Asahi Shimbun (2009)

·         Kyoto Prize for Basic Science (2012)

·         Gairdner Foundation International Award (2015)

·         International Prize for Biology (2015)

·         Keio Medical Science Prize (2015)

·         Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences (2016)

·         Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2016)

 ‘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,’ a statement on the official website of the Nobel Prize said. It said that mutations in autophagy genes can cause disease, and the process is involved in several conditions including cancer and neurological disease.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.

Source: www.thehealthsite.com

04.10.2016

When the wrong people leave your life, the right things start happening