The Yomiuri Shimbun – Nov 1, 2016 – The word “autophagy” has become widely recognized since Yoshinori Ohsumi was named as winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this year, but the academic vocabulary item had already been featured in a popular manga published in 2009.
Autophagy, a complex cell biology system, was introduced to manga lovers in “TORIKO” by Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro.
Ohsumi, an honorary professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, won the prize for discovering and elucidating the mechanisms underlying autophagy, a process of degrading and recycling cellular components.
“TORIKO” is serialized in the Shukan Shonen Jump weekly comic magazine. The manga follows the adventures of Toriko, who fights his way through enemies in his quest for various kinds of food. Autophagy was featured in Episode 50, in 2009.
The publisher, Shueisha Inc., made the episode — together with Episodes 48 and 49 — available for free viewing for a week on the magazine’s website earlier this month after Ohsumi’s selection as laureate.
Ohsumi’s research collaborators have looked favorably on autophagy’s appearance in the manga.
“At my lectures for junior high school students, several students would raise their hands when I asked if they were familiar with autophagy. Nearly all had learned the term from ‘TORIKO,’” said Prof. Tamotsu Yoshimori of Osaka University. He added that the exposition of the term found in the manga is accurate and this had a far stronger impact for the word’s profile than being published in a top-flight science journal.
Prof. Noboru Mizushima of the University of Tokyo introduced the manga case in his book, “Saibo ga Jibun o Taberu: Autophagy no Nazo” (Cells eat themselves: The mystery of autophagy), which was published in 2011, where he wrote: “Autophagy, a word that had a low profile even among life scientists, has become recognizable among people in the general public” thanks to its appearance in this manga.