Japan Won Nobel Prize for 3 Consecutive Years

First and foremost, I must beg your pardon for my slip in the prediction of this year's Nobel Prize - partially, though, because Japan did win one for three years in a row.

Sweden's Karolinska Institutet announced October 3 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Prof. Yoshinori Okuma, 71, of Tokyo Institute fo Technology for his contribution in clearing the mechanism of autophagy whereby starving cells take in protein for nutrition.

Japan has thus won 25 Nobel Prizes - for three consecutive years - and Prof. Okuma is so far the fourth recipient in Physiology or Medicine.

Autophagy is a Greek for "eating self", a process of recapitulating nutrition within starving cells. The phenomenon was known in the 1950's but neither its mechanism in the molecular level nor physiological significance.

In 1983, Mr. Okuma succeeded for the first time in history to observe through an optical microscope how enzymes decompose protein, etc. In 1993, he identified 14 difference kinds of genes indispensable for autophagy and traced their functions.

He subsequently expanded the area of study into animal cells and discovered that the mechanism of autophagy is equally shared by all organisms of cells with cores within and functions in various vital ways. The mechanism is now known to be associated with a number of maladies including cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.

The awarding ceremony is slated for December 10 in Stockholm and the prize money is expected to amount to 8 million Swedish kroner or 95 million yen.

Earlier in late September, Prof. Okuma told Sankei Shimbun how he had taken interest in the mechanism of cells decomposing protein, adding:

"I’m perverse in many ways and always wanted to do things others don't. I'm not built for competition. I took interest in autophagy because few others did."

The Nobel Week is only a day old. Let's see what awaits us in the course of the week. (Nathan Shiga)