Svante Pääbo wins 2022 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovery around genomes of extinct hominins
NEW DELHI, OCT 3 : Svante Pääbo won the 2022 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution. The first of the 2021 Nobel Prizes kicked off the week of announcements of the most coveted award.
Pääbo sequenced the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans. He also made the sensational discovery of a previously unknown hominin, Denisova.
“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. Pääbo’s seminal research gave rise to an entirely new scientific discipline; paleogenomics,” the Nobel announcement read.
Svante Pääbo is Director, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Last year’s prize went to David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian jointly for their discoveries of receptors for temperature and touch.
A total of 112 Nobel Prizes in Physiology or Medicine have been awarded between 1901 and 2021, of which only 12 have been women.
The prestigious award comes with a gold medal and 10 million Swedish kronor (over $1.14 million). The prize money comes from a bequest left by the prize’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1895.
The other prizes are for outstanding work in the fields of physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and economics, which will be announced in the coming days over the span of a week.
-The India Today
