Svante Paabo wins the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering Neanderthal DNA.Â
Svante Paabo, a Swedish geneticist, was awarded the Physiology or Medicine Nobel Prize for 2022 on Monday. This was for scientific findings that helped us better grasp how modern people descended from prehistoric predecessors.
What did Paabo say?
The award committee stated. Paabo’s is awarded for “discoveries involving the genomes of prehistoric hominins and human evolution” . Paabo is the head of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Thomas Perlmann, secretary for the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine, called Paabo with the surprise. He described him as “overwhelmed” and “extremely joyful.”
The call from Sweden, according to Paabo (67), may have been related to his summer residence there.
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In an audio clip uploaded on the Nobel website, Paabo remarked, “I was just slurping down the final cup of tea to go and pick up my kid at her nanny where she had had an overnight stay.” Then I received a call from Sweden, and I assumed it was related to our small vacation home there. I assumed that something had gone wrong with the lawn mower.
What did Paabo say about the award?
When asked if he believed he would win. He responded, “No, I have won a few awards before. But I didn’t expect that this would actually qualify for a Nobel Prize.”
The son of a Nobel Prize-winning biologist. Paabo revolutionized the study of human origins, making him popular. How? by creating techniques that make it possible to analyze DNA sequences from ancient artifacts and fossils.
How will his discoveries help?
The procedures he created to enable the sequencing of a whole Neanderthal genome are the most notable among his accomplishment. He also contributed to the discovery of a previously unidentified human race known as the Denisovans. He discovered it from a 40,000-year-old finger bone fragment found in Siberia.
The Nobel Committee stated in a statement on Monday that “this old flow of genes to modern humans has physiological consequences today, for example impacting how our immune system reacts to illnesses.”
Furthermore, they added, the Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute will give the award. It is one of the most renowned in the scientific community. It is valued at 10 million Swedish crowns ($900,357). Paabo, a Stockholm native, completed his medical and biochemistry degrees at Uppsala University before founding the scientific field of “paleogenomics,” which helped explain the genetic variations.
