2016 Nobel Prize Winner Yoshinori Ohsumi’s Discoveries Could Change How We Treat Disease
Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi, 71, won the 2016 Nobel Prize on Monday for his research on autophagy ― a metabolic recycling process in which cells eat parts of themselves to survive and stay healthy.
His initial work, first started in 1992, focused on the genes behind the autophagy process in yeast cells. Autophagy, however, has implications for several human diseases, including cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, infectious diseases and diabetes.
Now drugs that can target the process are being tested in early-stage clinical trials in human beings, which could fundamentally change everything from the way we treat dementia disorders to how we eradicate cancerous growths...