The 2022 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology was awarded to Svante Pääbo “for his discoveries on the genomes of extinct hominids and human evolution”. Foreign member of the Accademia dei Lincei, Pääbo sequenced the Neanderthal genome and discovered the extinct hominid known as Denisova’s husband. Born in Stockholm in 1955, the researcher studied at Uppsala University, was a private lecturer at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and is co-director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. Pääbo is an honorary doctor of numerous academies and a “son of art” in the Nobel category: his father, Sune K. Bergstrom received the same recognition in 1982 for important work on prostaglandins, endogenous molecules involved in numerous physiological functions.
Pääbo’s pioneering research allowed to deepen the knowledge of gene transfer appeared after migrating from Africa about 70,000 years ago. This gene flow, experts explain, has physiological relevance because it affects how the modern immune system responds to infection. “Humanity has always been fascinated by the mystery of its origins – says the press release of the congregation at the award ceremony – Svante Pääbo has achieved the seemingly impossible with the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome. A completely new scientific discipline emerged from his research: paleogenomics. His discoveries provide the basis for exploring what makes us uniquely human.”
Fascinated by the possibility of using modern genetics to study ancient DNA, Svante Pääbo faced numerous challenges in order to be able to analyze the genetic material of our ancestors. The researcher therefore decided to study the Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA, which contains only part of the genetic information present in the cell but exists in thousands of copies. Using a cutting-edge approach, Pääbo was able to sequence a region of mitochondrial DNA from a bone find belonging to an individual who lived 40,000 years ago.
As a result, Pääbo’s team made genetic sequencing more efficient and published the Neanderthal genome sequence for the first time in 2010. Comparative analyzes showed that the most recent common ancestor of this species, Homo sapiens, dates back around 800,000 years.
Scientists also identified a previously unknown hominid named Denisova’s Man. The research of the 2022 Nobel Prize winner gave rise to paleogenomics, a new discipline based on the study of ancient genetic material. “The discoveries of Pääbo have led to a new understanding of our evolutionary history – comment the Assembly members – thanks to the work of this brilliant researcher, we can now analyze how the archaic gene sequences of our ancestors influence the human genome and understand what makes us human ” .
The echo of the announcement also reached Italy, where the research group passed David Caramel has several works in collaboration with Paabo to his credit. Fantastic news”. Caramelli, head of the Department of Biology and the Laboratory of Anthropology and Molecular Palaeogenomics at the University of Florence, said. He was the pioneer of the studies that we are also doing and the fact that this aspect has been recognized at this level , gives me great pleasure. “Together with Pääbo – he said – we have published several articles, all related to the study of human evolution. I am very happy about this award. It is a recognition of our entire discipline. It is very nice to see that the work done has been recognized in such a prestigious way”.
Valentina DiPaola