The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2022: Awarded to Svante Pääbo "for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution"

Submitted by shiruken t3_xukw02 in science

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2022 was awarded to Svante Pääbo for "his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution."

>Through his pioneering research, Svante Pääbo accomplished something seemingly impossible: sequencing the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans. He also made the sensational discovery of a previously unknown hominin, Denisova. Importantly, Pääbo also found that gene transfer had occurred from these now extinct hominins to Homo sapiens following the migration out of Africa around 70,000 years ago. This ancient flow of genes to present-day humans has physiological relevance today, for example affecting how our immune system reacts to infections.

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khellstrom t1_iqw19mf wrote

I've become such a nerd. Each year I look forward to the nobel prize. Also the banquet :D Is such a great celebration of what the human mind can do. I absolutely love it!

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civver3 t1_iqwdg2u wrote

Seems like the first Physiology/Medicine Nobel for macroevolution.

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clowdeevape t1_iqx3toq wrote

All this an yet we still haven't sorted out our reckless disregard and consumption of umlauts

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Vio_ t1_iqx52ll wrote

This is actually underselling his career.

He developed the entire process and laboratory requirements to even get viable aDNA results. Before that, ancient DNA studies were almost akin to snake oil in a lot of ways.

He made important discoveries on the FOXP2 gene, did some of the first genetic research on Egyptian mummies, got some of the first mammoth genetic results, worked with insects in amber, and so on.

I highly recommend his quasi-memoir Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes. It's an interesting read and also a lot of fun.

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Rebelgecko t1_iqxb6ne wrote

Replying to civver3 (#22,124)

The macroevolution work is only possible because of very "micro" things, like new techniques to filter out contamination from ancient DNA samples, the first sequencing of neanderthals and denisovans, etc

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