Illustration of the Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi (born 1945). Ohsumi was awarded the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries of the mechanisms of autophagy. Autophagy, or autophagocytosis, is the mechanism by which cells remove unnecessary or dysfunctional cellular components and recycle them for reuse. Disruption of autophagy can lead to disease, including cancer.