Japanese scientist Yoshinori Ohsumi was awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discoveries related to the degrading and recycling of cellular components.

As per reports, 273 scientists were nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine this year.

Ohsumi’s work on autophagy – how the body breaks down and recycles cellular components – helps explain what goes wrong in a range of diseases, from cancer to Parkinson’s.

The Nobel committee, while announcing the Prize in Stockholm, said in a statement that this year’s Nobel Laureate “discovered and elucidated mechanisms underlying autophagy, a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components.”

The Karolinska Institute honored Ohsumi for “brilliant experiments” in the 1990s on autophagy, the machinery with which cells recycle their content.

It was the 107th award in the medicine category since the first Nobel Prizes were handed out in 1905.

Last year’s prize was shared by three scientists who developed treatments for malaria and other tropical diseases.

The announcements continue with physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, with each prize receiving 8 million kronor ($930,000).

The economics and literature awards will be announced next week.

Yoshinori Ohsumi is the sixth Medicine Laureate born in Japan.

Ohsumi was born on February 9, 1945 in Fukuoka, Japan.He is currently a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.