“His discoveries have laid the foundation for exploring what makes us humans such unique beings,” the Nobel Prize committee said on Monday.
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Published on 03/10/2022 11:51 AM Updated on 03/10/2022 12:14 PM
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The 2022 Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology was awarded on Monday 3 October to Sweden’s Svante Pääbo for sequencing the Neanderthal genome and laying the foundations of paleogenomics. “By uncovering the genetic differences that distinguish all living humans from extinct hominids, his findings provided the basis for exploring what makes us humans such unique beings,” the jury said.
BREAKING NEWS:
The 2022 #Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Svante Pääbo was awarded “for his discoveries on the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.” pic.twitter.com/fGFYYnCO6J– The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 3, 2022
“Genetic differences between Homo sapiens and our now-extinct closest relatives were unknown until they were identified through Pääbo’s work,” the Nobel committee added in its decision.
Svante Pääbo (67) discovered that gene transfer had taken place between these now extinct hominins and Homo sapiens. This ancient flow of genes to modern-day humans has physiological implications, for example by influencing how our immune systems respond to infections. His father Sune Bergstrom was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1982.
Last year, Americans Ardem Patapoutian and David Julius were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering how the nervous system transmits temperature and touch.