Pääbo

Svante Pääbo is a Swedish geneticist known for founding the field of paleogenetics and for his work on the genomes of extinct hominins. He serves as director of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, where his research focuses on retrieving and analyzing DNA from ancient remains to illuminate human evolution and population history.

Education and career: Pääbo studied biology at Uppsala University, earning his PhD in 1986. He then conducted research at several institutions before joining the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, where he established a program dedicated to ancient DNA and the evolution of hominins. His work has been instrumental in developing methods to prevent contamination and authenticate ancient genetic material.

Research contributions: Pääbo’s group pioneered paleogenetics by adapting DNA technologies to ancient specimens. In 1997, his team published the first Neanderthal mitochondrial genome, a landmark in the reconstruction of extinct lineages. The later sequencing of the Neanderthal nuclear genome and the discovery of the Denisovan genome provided crucial evidence of interbreeding between modern humans and other hominins and revealed deep evolutionary relationships within the human lineage.

Awards and recognition: In 2022, Pääbo received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning extinct hominins. He has been honored with numerous other awards and memberships in scientific academies for his contributions to evolutionary genetics and genomics.

Legacy: Pääbo’s work established paleogenetics as a central approach in anthropology and has significantly shaped understanding of human origins, migration, and admixture with archaic relatives.

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