来自日本的大隅良典获得了2016年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖。
The Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute announced the prize on Monday.
瑞典卡罗林斯卡医学院诺贝尔奖大会周一公布了该奖项。
The institute is honoring Ohsumi for his experiments with baker's yeast in the 1990s. He studied a natural process in which cells break down and reuse some of their parts.
该机构表彰了大隅良典在上世纪90年代用面包酵母进行的实验。他研究了细胞降解与再利用细胞内一些成分的这一自然过程。
This process is called autophagy. The word autophagy comes from two words in the Greek language. They are "auto-," meaning "self," and phagein, meaning "to eat."
该过程被称之为自噬。自噬这个单词出自于两个希腊单词。他们分别"auto-"，意思是“自我”，以及"phagein"，意思是“吃”。
The prize committee said understanding the science behind this process has led to a better understanding of diseases such as cancer, Parkinson's and type 2 diabetes.
诺奖委员会表示，了解这一过程背后的科学已经让人们更好地了解癌症、帕金森病以及二型糖尿病等疾病。
The Karolinska Institute said, "His discoveries opened the path to understanding the fundamental importance of autophagy in many physiological processes."
卡罗林斯卡学院表示，“他的发现为人们了解细胞自噬机制在许多生理进程中的重大意义开辟了道路。”
"Autophagy has been known for over 50 years, but its fundamental importance in physiology and medicine was only recognized after Yoshinori Ohsumi's paradigm-shifting research," it said.
该学院表示，“细胞自噬机制的发现已有50多年。但是它在生理和医学上的重大意义一直到大隅良典的颠覆性研究后才被世人所知。”
"Thanks to Ohsumi and others following in his footsteps, we now know that autophagy controls important physiological functions," to break down and recycle cellular particles.
“由于大隅良典及其追随者的努力，我们现在知道细胞自噬机制控制了重要的生理机制”，也就是降解和再利用细胞颗粒。
Ohsumi is now a professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He told the Kyodo news agency he was "extremely honored" to get the prize.
大隅良典目前是东京工业大学的教授。他对日本共同社表示，他“非常荣幸”能够获得这一奖项。
Separately, he told Japanese broadcaster NHK he had "always wanted to do something that other people wouldn't do."
此外，他对日本NHK电视台表示，他“一直想做一些别人不会去做的事情”。
He said the breakdown of particles interested him.
他说，细胞颗粒的降解引起了他的兴趣。
Christer Hogg is a professor with Sweden's Karolinska Institute. He said the experiments helped explain important processes in human development, from growing up, to aging, to dying from a disease.
克里斯特·霍格（Christer Hogg）是瑞典卡罗林斯卡医学院的教授。他说，这些实验有助于解释人类发展的一些重要过程，从成长、衰老，再到因病死亡。
"In the very early stages, your organs and your whole body is constantly being made over again – you are growing. So you need to get rid of the old stuff and generate new structures," he told Reuters news service.
他对路透社表示，“在非常初期的阶段，你的器官和整个身体不断再造，你在成长。所以你需要甩掉旧的东西并且生成新的结构体。”
"When you undergo aging, you have structures that have to be taken away, and this – autophagy – is the principle that gets rid of them."
“当你经受衰老时，有些结构体需要更新，而摆脱它们的原理正是自噬。”
"If you affect this system – the genes and proteins involved in autophagy – you no longer can take care of the waste, and once it accumulates, you will get some type of disease," he said.
他说，“如果你使涉及自噬的基因和蛋白质受到感染，就不能再处理这些废弃细胞，一旦它们累积起来，你就会生病。”
The prize for physiology or medicine is the first Nobel Prize awarded each year. It is worth $930,000.
诺贝尔生理学或医学奖是每年最先颁发的诺贝尔奖项，奖金达93万美元。
Other Nobel prizes will be announced this week and next week.
其它诺贝尔奖项将在本周和下周公布。
I'm Caty Weaver.
我是卡狄·韦弗。(51VOA.COM对本文翻译保留全部权利，未经授权请勿转载，违者必究！)