Plural of autophagus; organisms or entities that consume their own tissue or substance.
From Greek 'auto-' (self) and 'phagus' (eater), derived from 'phagein' (to eat). The term emerged in biological science in the 19th century to describe cellular processes where organisms digest themselves.
Your cells actually eat themselves constantly in a process called autophagy—it's how they recycle old parts and stay healthy. Cancer researchers study this process because cancer cells sometimes trick their autophagy to survive, making it one of medicine's strangest battlegrounds.
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