[Perspective] Closing the loop

In 1963, the term autophagy was coined by Christian de Duve (Nobel Laureate, 1974) to denote the degradation of cellular self-constituents by the lysosome (1). In 2016, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi for “his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy” (2). Such discoveries led to the unveiling of autophagy as an evolutionarily conserved pathway that functions in differentiation and development, physiology, and protection against aging and many disease