Nobel Prize in Medicine Awarded to Japan’s Yoshinori Ohsumi

This year,"s Nobel Prize for medicine goes to Yoshinori Ohsumi of Japan for discoveries about autophagy.

Autophagy is how the body breaks down and recycles cellular components.
 
Ohsumi's work is important because it helps explain what goes wrong in a range of diseases, from cancer to Parkinson's.  He located the genes that regulate this "self eating" process.

Last year's prize was shared by three scientists who developed treatments for malaria and other tropical diseases.

BBC