IntechOpen author Yoshinori Ohsumi awarded 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

IntechOpen would like to congratulate Prof. Yoshinori Ohsumi for receiving the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work and discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy.

We are proud to say that Prof. Yoshinori Ohsumi, from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, is an IntechOpen author.

His chapter, “Crystallographic Studies on Autophagy-Related Proteins,” written in collaboration with Nobuo N. Noda from the Institute of Microbial Chemistry, Tokyo and Fuyuhiko Inagaki from Hokkaido University, Japan, reviewed X-ray crystallographic studies of Atg proteins focusing on experimental details in order to establish the molecular functions of each Atg protein and unveil the mechanism of autophagy.  

A naturally occurring destructive mechanism, autophagy, disassembles unnecessary or dysfunctional cellular components through a regulated process. One of life’s fundamental processes, the importance of autophagy in physiology and medicine was only realized after Prof. Yoshinori Ohsumi began his research in the 1990’s.

Prof. Yoshinori Ohsumi is the second Nobel Laureate we have had the privilage to work with.  In 2011 and 2013 respectively, we published two chapters written by Harold W. Kroto, Florida State University, United States, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. 

Again, a huge congratulations to Prof. Yoshinori Ohsumi on this incredible accomplishment.

Read the Nobel Prize official press release here.