2022 Nobel Prize winner, Physiology or Medicine
Director, Max Planck Institute For Evolutionary Anthropology
Member, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Professor Svante Pääbo, PhD is known as one of the founders of paleogenetics, a discipline that uses the methods of genetics to study early humans and other ancient populations. In 1997, Dr. Pääbo and colleagues reported their successful sequencing of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).
Dr. Pääbo has developed techniques and approaches that allow DNA sequences from archaeological and paleontological remains to be determined. This has allowed ancient DNA from extinct organisms, humans, animals and pathogens to be studied. He determined a high-quality Neandertal genome sequence, allowing for the reconstruction of the recent evolutionary history of our species and the realization that Neandertals contributed DNA to present-day humans who live outside Africa. By studying DNA sequences from a small Siberian bone he discovered Denisovans, a previously unknown hominin group distantly related to Neandertals. He also works on the comparative and functional genomics of humans and apes, particularly the evolution of genetic features such as the FOXP2 ‘speech and language’ gene that may underlie aspects of traits specific to humans.
Svante Pääbo has received several honorary doctorates and scientific prizes and is a member of numerous academies. He is currently a Director at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
Awards
1992 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft,
the highest honor awarded in German research
2005 the prestigious Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine
2009 Kistler Prize from the Foundation for the Future
2010 Theodor Bücher Medal for outstanding achievements in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS)
2017 Dan David Prize
2018 Princess of Asturias Awards in the category of Scientific Research
2019 Lindahl Lecture, the Napa Pain Conference
2022 Nobel Prize, Physiology or Medicine
Select Publications
- Pääbo, S. (1993). Ancient DNA. Scientific American, 269(5), 86-92.
- Enard, W., Przeworski, M., Fisher, S. E., Lai, C. S., Wiebe, V., Kitano, T., … & Pääbo, S. (2002). Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language. Nature, 418(6900), 869.
- Hofreiter, M., Jaenicke, V., Serre, D., Haeseler, A. V., & Pääbo, S. (2001). DNA sequences from multiple amplifications reveal artifacts induced by cytosine deamination in ancient DNA. Nucleic acids research, 29(23), 4793-4799.
- Höss, M., Jaruga, P., Zastawny, T. H., Dizdaroglu, M., & Paabo, S. (1996). DNA damage and DNA sequence retrieval from ancient tissues. Nucleic acids research, 24(7), 1304-1307.
- Krause, J., Unger, T., Noçon, A., Malaspinas, A. S., Kolokotronis, S. O., Stiller, M., … & Bray, S. C. (2008). Mitochondrial genomes reveal an explosive radiation of extinct and extant bears near the Miocene-Pliocene boundary. BMC Evolutionary Biology, 8(1), 220.