Nobel Prize Awarded to Svante Pääbo for Discoveries in Evolution
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Sweden-born geneticist Svante Pääbo, recognizing him for discoveries related to the genomes of extinct human groups that shed light on the genetic characteristics unique to present-day humans.
The committee said Dr. Pääbo, whose father was also a Nobel laureate, overcame challenges in recovering and analyzing ancient DNA to sequence the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans. He also discovered a previously unknown human relative, called the Denisova. He is based at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.
The committee said Dr. Pääbo, whose father was also a Nobel laureate, overcame challenges in recovering and analyzing ancient DNA to sequence the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans. He also discovered a previously unknown human relative, called the Denisova. He is based at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.
