The 2016 Noble Prize in Physicology or medicine goes to Yoshinori Ohsumi of Japan for discoveries about the secrets of how cells can remain healthy by recycling waste.
He located genes that regulate the cellular “self eating” process known as autophagy.
Dr Ohsumi’s work is important because it helps explain what goes wrong in a range of illnesses, from cancer to Parkinson’s.
Errors in these genes cause disease.
