Svante Pääbo receives the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his discoveries on the genoms of extinct hominins and human evolution. This has announced the Nobel Assembly of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. With his groundbreaking research, Pääbo had made something seemingly impossible, according to the press release: "The sequencing of the genome of the Neanderthals, an extinct relative of today's man". In addition, he succeeded in the "sensational discovery" of a previously unknown hominating, the Denisovaner, and he found that a gentransfer from these early people took place on the Homo sapiens. "This ancient gene flow on today's people today has physiological importance," it continues. For example, it influences how our immune system reacts to infections.
As the Karolinska Institute team points out, the research of the Director and Scientific Member at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has established a completely new scientific discipline: paleogenetics. By uncovering the genetic differences that distinguish all living humans from extinct hominins, Pääbo's discoveries "form the basis for exploring what makes us unique," the committee writes. In the meantime, the group led by the Swede, who works in Germany, has analyzed several more genome sequences of extinct hominins. There was increasing evidence that archaic hominins mixed with Homo sapiens in Africa. Since tropical climate promotes the degradation of archaic DNA, the thesis has not yet been proven.
Last year, the researchers David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian were awarded in this category. They have discovered cell receptors through which people perceive temperature and touch.
The Nobel Prize for Medicine is traditionally the start of the annual announcements at the beginning of October. On Tuesday and Wednesday, this year's award winners will be found in physics and chemistry, on Thursday and Friday the winners will follow in the categories of literature and peace. Finally, the award for economics will be announced next Monday, but this will not go back to the will of price tablers and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel. The awards are presented on Nobel's death on December 10th - the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, all others in Stockholm.
Between 3 and 10 October, the Nobel Committees will announce the 2022 Nobel Laureates. On our topic page »Nobel Prizes – the highest award« you can find out who has received one of the prestigious prizes. There you can also read the essentials about the laureates and their research.
