A 67-year-old researcher finds DNA in the bones of a 40,000-year-old corpse, earning him the 2022 Nobel Prize.
After removing DNA from the bones of a 40,000-year-old dead cadaver, Svante Paabo, a remarkable 67-year-old Swedish scientist, was named the 2022 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine.
In addition to extracting DNA from the 40,000-year-old human bones, Svante Paabo, who has been involved in the discovery research for decades, was able to sequence the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of modern humans.
Paleogenomics is a brand-new scientific field that emerged from Svante Paabo’s ability to prove that genes were transferred between extinct hominins and modern humans.
What Paabo’s work accomplished had been deemed unachievable, according to Dr. Nils-Goran Larsson, a professor of medical biochemistry at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and the chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine.
Paabo was awarded the prize “for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution,” according to a statement posted on the website of the Nobel Prize organization.
Paleogenomics is a brand-new scientific field that emerged as a result of Paabo’s groundbreaking work. His findings lay the groundwork for investigating what makes us distinctively human by exposing genetic variations that set all extant humans apart from extinct hominins, the release continued.
Speaking on Paabo’s discovery, the Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine and a Professor in Medical Biochemistry for the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Dr Nils-Goran Larsson, said what Paabo’s work achieved had been deemed impossible.
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“Well, it does tell us that we are very closely related, first of all, and we are so closely related that they have contributed quite directly, 50, 60 thousand years ago, DNA to the ancestors of most people today, those who have their roots outside Africa. And those variations do, in a sense, have an impact and affect a lot of things in our physiology today,” he stated.
Dr. Nils-Goran responded, “In some sense, I do think it does so, the sort of realization that until quite recently, maybe 14 hundred generations or so ago there were other forms of humans around and they mixed with our ancestors and have contributed to us today,” when asked if the discovery would alter how people currently view themselves.
Since we are the only species of human left, the past 40,000 years are unique in human history. Prior to that, there were nearly always different kinds of people,” he continued.
Excited by the victory, Professor Svante Paabo clarified that he never anticipated receiving a call from the Nobel Committee and did not believe his work would be eligible for a Nobel.
I was just finishing my last cup of tea before heading to pick up my kid after her overnight stay with her nanny. After that, I received a call from Sweden, and naturally assumed it had to do with our tiny vacation home. He stated, “I thought the lawnmower had broken down or something.”
Paabo, 67, is a professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan and one of the pioneers of paleogenetics.
