The process he studies is critical for cells to survive and to stay healthy. The autophagy genes and the metabolic pathways he discovered in yeast are used by higher organisms, including humans. And mutations in those genes can cause disease. His work led to a new field and inspired hundreds of researchers around the world to study the process and opened a new area of inquiry.“Without him, the whole field doesn’t exist,” said Seungmin Hwang, an assistant professor in the department of pathology at the University of Chicago. “He set up the field.”
Dr. Ohsumi’s Nobel Prize “was inevitable,” Dr. Levine said. Dr. Ohsumi, she said, “is venerated in the autophagy field.”
Little was known about how autophagy happens, what genes were involved, or its role in disease and normal development until Dr. Ohsumi began studying the process in baker’s yeast.
