Yoshinori Ohsumi

Yoshinori Ohsumi was born February 9, 1945, and built his career as a Japanese cell biologist around a process most scientists had overlooked: autophagy, the method cells use to destroy and recycle their own components. His work cracked open the mechanisms behind that internal cleanup system, showing how it prevents cellular waste from accumulating and how it lets cells cannibalize their own parts under stress. The discoveries earned him the Kyoto Prize for Basic Sciences in 2012, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2016, and the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences in 2017. He's a professor at the Institute of Innovative Research at Institute of Science Tokyo, still working in the field he made visible.