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Japanese biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine on Monday for discovering and elucidating a key mechanism in our body's defense system that involves degrading and recycling parts of cells. Known as autophagy, this process plays an important role in cancer, Alzheimer's, type 2 diabetes, birth defects from Zika virus and numerous other devastating diseases. (Cha, 10/3)

According to statement from the Nobel prize committee, Ohsumi's work opened the path to understanding how cells adapt to starvation or respond to infection. Mutations in the genes that control the process of autophagy can lead to several conditions, including cancer and neurological disease. Each Nobel prize is worth about $930,000. In most years, the prize is shared among two or more scientists. This year's prize goes to Ohsumi alone. (Stein, 10/3)