2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Svante Pääbo- Founder of Max Planck

Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig,
Germany
Discoveries concerning the genomes
of extinct hominins and human evolution
Contributions of Svante Pääbo

• Succeeded in developing techniques for sequencing archaic genomes

(Paleogenomics)
• Deciphered the genome sequence of our closest extinct relative, the
Neanderthal; 45,000year-old
• Discovered another extinct hominin, the Denisova, entirely from
genome data retrieved from a small finger bone specimen
Paleogenomics
It is a field of science based on the reconstruction and analysis of
genomic information in extinct species.
Where do we come from?

A seemingly impossible task

 What makes us uniquely human?

Archaic genomes offer exciting new possibilities to identify critical genetic features
that distinguish modern humans from Neanderthals and Denisovans. As our closest
evolutionary relatives, their genomes provide reference points that can elucidate
specific human characteristics of relevance for physiology and medicine.
2022 Nobel Prize in Physics

For experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information
science