The 2016 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine goes to Yoshinori Ohsumi of Japan for discoveries about autophagy - how the body breaks down and recycles old cellular components.

Ohsumi's work is important because it helps explain what goes wrong in a range of diseases, from cancer to Parkinson's.

He studied baker's yeast to find the genes that regulate this "self eating" process.

The Nobel Committee said this on autophagy:

"We now know that autophagy controls important physiological functions where cellular components need to be degraded and recycled. Autophagy can rapidly provide fuel for energy and building blocks for renewal of cellular components, and is therefore essential for the cellular response to starvation and other types of stress. After infection, autophagy can eliminate invading intracellular bacteria and viruses. Autophagy contributes to embryo development and cell differentiation. Cells also use autophagy to eliminate damaged proteins and organelles, a quality control mechanism that is critical for counteracting the negative consequences of ageing.

Disrupted autophagy has been linked to Parkinson’s disease, type 2 diabetes and other disorders that appear in the elderly. Mutations in autophagy genes can cause genetic disease. Disturbances in the autophagic machinery have also been linked to cancer. Intense research is now ongoing to develop drugs that can target autophagy in various diseases."