If there's one thing that Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi did not expect but certainly dreamed of, it's that he would win the 2016 Nobel Prize by studying how degrading cells recycle themselves. His research was driven by his goal to understand the process better and hopefully find a way to make existing treatment methods for incurable diseases better.
"As a boy, the Nobel Prize was a dream, but after starting my research, it was out of my picture," said Ohsumi, as reported by ABC News. "I don't feel comfortable competing with many people, and instead I find it more enjoyable doing something nobody else is doing. In a way, that's what science is all about, and the joy of finding something inspires me."
Ohsumi's research focuses on the process of autophagy in which cells eat the parts of themselves that have been damaged thereby giving it the opportunity to use whatever is in their disposal for renewal. He also studied how the lack and excess of it can affect the body.
Several scientists have linked dysfunctional autophagy processes to the accumulation of Lewy cells or abnormal amounts of protein spread throughout the brain, which leads to the development of Parkinson's disease. One of those scientists is Jay Debnath, a professor at University of California. In summary of the findings, it seems that when the cells fail to go through the process of autophagy to restore the damaged areas, it leads to neurodegenerative disorders.
Debnath began studying Ohsumi's research in 2005 and is now focused on finding a brest cancer treatment based on the Nobel Prize Winner's findings. Another one of his studies, that couldn't have been productive if it weren't for Ohsumi's focus on autophagy, is that of accelerated autophagy. His results yielded a possible way of helping chemotherapy be more effective.
"In cancer cells, one of the thoughts is that you want to turn the process off in order to potentially make those cancer cells more adaptable to die during chemotherapy and other types of therapy," Debnath explained, as reported by Huffington Post.
The organization behind the Nobel Prize acknowledged Ohsumi's research "paradigm-shifting."
"Autophagy has been known for over 50 years but its fundamental importance in physiology and medicine was only recognized after Yoshinori Ohsumi's paradigm-shifting research in the 1990's. For his discoveries, he is awarded this year's Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine," the organization stated in a press release.
With Ohsumi's research and the efforts of the scientists who focused on his findings, we can expect a revolutionary medical advancement in terms of our longstanding fight against incurable and inexplicable diseases like cancer, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative illnesses.
