mopdiet.pages.dev

Svante paäbo

From Neanderthal genome to Nobel prize: meet geneticist Svante Pääbo

  • NEWS Q&A

Nature asked the pioneer of ancient-DNA research about some of his greatest discoveries.

Svante Pääbo, the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, has pioneered efforts to recover DNA from ancient humans. His team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, sequenced the first Neanderthal genome1 and identified a new group of ancient humans, called Denisovans2, on the basis of DNA from a grape-seed-sized fleck of finger bone.

Access options

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

24,99 € / 30 days

cancel any time

Learn more

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 51 print issues and online access

,98 € per year

only 3,65 € per issue

Learn more

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$

to$

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

doi:

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

References

  1. Green, R. E. et al.Science, – ().

    ArticlePubMed Go

    Svante Pääbo

    Swedish geneticist (born )

    Svante PääboForMemRSKmstkNO (Swedish:[ˈsvânːtɛ̂ˈpʰɛ̌ːbʊ̂];[3] born 20 April ) is a Swedish geneticist and Nobel Laureate who specialises in the field of evolutionary genetics.[4] As one of the founders of paleogenetics, he has worked extensively on the Neanderthal genome.[5][6] In , he became founding director of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.[7][8][9] Since , he has been an honorary professor at Leipzig University; he currently teaches molecular evolutionary biology at the university.[10][11] He is also an adjunct professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan.[12]

    In , he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution".[13][14][15]

    Education and early life

    [edit]

    Pääbo was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in and grew up there with his mother,[5]Estonian chemist Karin Pääbo (Estonian:[ˈpæːpo]; –), who

    Nobel Winner Svante Pääbo Discovered the Neandertal in Our Genes

    Scientists have always been fascinated by the question of human origins: When and where did modern humans—Homo sapiens—first appear? What distinguishes us from other members of the genus Homo and enabled us to develop such unprecedented culture and society?

    Indeed, hardly any question fascinates humanity as much as our own roots. For thousands of years, clerics, scholars and philosophers have been racking their brains about where we come from, who are we and where are we going. The French painter Paul Gauguin was so captivated by that line of inquiry that he even dedicated a painting so named in the 19th century. The work, which deals with both the meaning and the transience of life, remains his most famous.

    We have come a lot closer to answering these big questions thanks in part to the work of the paleogeneticist Svante Pääbo. He achieved what others had long thought impossible: he decoded the genome of Neandertals, a relative of modern humans who went extinct around 30, years ago. The Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm honored him this year with the N

    .

    .