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Japan's Yoshinori Ohsumi wins the 2016 prize for discoveries related to autophagy, the process in cells whereby they degrade some of their internal structures and send the parts out for recycling.

日本的大隅良典因细胞自噬的相关发现获得了2016年诺贝尔奖。细胞能够分解部分自身组织并将它们送出细胞循环利用。

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Yoshinori Ohsumi of Japan for his discoveries of mechanisms of what’s known as autophagy. Break the word down and you get auto and phagy: from the Greek for self, auto, and eating, phagein. So, self-eating. Autophagy refers to a process in cells whereby they destroy themselves and send the parts out for recycling. Cells do this by enclosing their contents in tiny sacks, called vesicles. Those vesicles then get transported to an organelle within the cell called the lysosome. Where the sacks get degraded and the contents are made available for reuse.

2016年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖颁给了日本的大隅良典，以表彰他对细胞自噬机制的相关发现。拆开单词“自噬”，会得到希腊语“自己”和“吞噬”。因此，自噬即自己吞噬自己。自噬这一生命过程会摧毁自身再将碎片送出细胞再循环。细胞通过将内容物装进叫囊泡的小袋子来完成这一功能。囊泡将它们运送至细胞器溶酶体里分解，以便实现再次利用。

Autophagy had been observed a half-century before Ohsumi’s work in the 1990’s while at the University of Tokyo. But it was his research that made clear its fundamental importance. He did that work with baker’s yeast. One way he made his discoveries was to interfere with the process and thus see vesicles involved in autophagy start to build up—this action proved that yeast cells performed autophagy. He went on to identify 15 genes crucial for the process.

在大隅良典于上世纪90年代在东京大学工作之前，自噬过程已经被观察了半个世纪。但正是他的研究解释了自噬的基本重要性。他用面包酵母做了这项工作。他证实发现的一种方式是通过干预自噬过程来观察囊泡的构建——这个反应机制证明了酵母细胞具有自噬功能。他又继续确认了这一生命过程所需的15种必不可少的基因。

Need quick fuel for energy? Autophagy makes that fuel available fast. Need raw materials for maintenance in other cells? Autophagy gets those materials into the system so the body can respond to starvation and other stresses. Infected? Autophagy plays a part in capturing and killing bacteria and viruses. It clears out damaged proteins and organelles, thus helping to fight the effects of aging. At the other end of the life cycle, autophagy is involved in the development of embryos. It’s truly a fundamental process.

需要供给能量的快速燃料？自噬机制可以实现燃料的快速利用。其它细胞需要维持机能的原料？自噬机制能让原料进入身体抵御饥饿和其它压力。被病菌感染了？自噬机制还能参与捕获消灭细菌病毒的过程。它清除受损蛋白和细胞器，帮助对抗老化的影响。而在生命周期的另一端，自噬还参与了胚胎的发育。它真的是一个基础的生命过程。

Ohsumi is 71 years old. He’s currently an emeritus professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. The Nobel Prize comes with a monetary award of about $1.2 million.

大隅良典现年71岁，是东京工业大学的荣誉教授。他所获的诺贝尔奖奖金约120万美元。