
AsianScientist (Oct. 5, 2015) – The 2015 International Prize for Biology has been awarded to Honorary Professor Yoshinori Ohsumi of Tokyo Tech’s Frontier Research Center. He will be presented his award at a the Japan Academy in Ueno that will be attended by Their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Japan.
The International Prize for Biology was instituted in 1985 by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science to commemorate the sixty-year reign of Emperor Showa and his longtime devotion to biological research. It is awarded to researchers who have achieved excellent results in the field of biology at an international level and have made considerable contributions to the advancement of global science.
“So far, thirty people have received the award, only six of whom were Japanese. Among these are Dr. Motoo Kimura, who was awarded the prize in 1988, and Dr. Setsuro Ebashi, who received his prize in 1999. Both are my esteemed predecessors who carried out their work in Japan and achieved glittering results. The honor of being included among people of this caliber is extremely sobering,” Ohsumi said.
Ohsumi received the prize for his research in the field of autophagy. Starting his research when little was known about autophagy at the molecular level, he uncovered the mechanism by which the actions of multiple autophagy-related genes lead to autophagy. Ohsumi showed autophagy to be an essential life process widely conserved in nature and established it as a major new field in the life sciences.
“I originally focused on observing the process of autophagy using yeast. Then I sought to identify the autophagy-related (ATG) genes, also in yeast. This has resulted in a rapid and widespread increase in autophagy research in recent years, and we now know that autophagy is not only an intracellular mechanism essential for survival but also has a pathological role related to certain types of diseases such as neurodegenerative diseases and cancers,” Ohsumi added.
“We are coming to understand that the degradation process in our body is no less important than protein synthesis in maintaining metabolic function. It is my intention to use my remaining research time to return to basics and seek out an answer to the fundamental question: what is autophagy? I also hope to play a part in encouraging younger generations interested in cell biology research to develop the field even further.”
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Source: Tokyo Institute of Technology.
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