Winner of Nobel Prize 2022 -Medicine or Physiology.
Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology 2022 awarded to - SVANTE PAABO
Svante Paabo is a Swedish Geneticist.
Svante Paabo was awarded Nobel Prize for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.
Hominins-are the group consisting of modern humans, extinct human species and all of the immediate ancestors.
Svaante Paabo analyzed and sequenced mitochondrial DNA from a 40,000 year old piece of bone of a Neanderthal with his refined methods.
So, because of Svaante Paabo, we have, for the first time, a sequence of a region of mitochondrial DNA from an extinct relative !!!
And comparisons of genetic sequence of Neanderthals with contemporary humans showed that Neanderthals were genetically distinct.
Sequencing a DNA from Neanderthals was not easy as as there were technical challenges because DNA gets chemically modified with time and degrades into short fragments.
Svaante Paabo developed methods to study DNA from Neanderthals.
With the help of Paabo's discoveries, we can understand how archaic gene sequences from our extinct relatives influence the physiology of present day human.