Swedish Scientist wins Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering part of human evolution.
Techniques that Svante Paabo spearheaded allows researchers to compare the genome of modern humans with that of other hominins.
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Swedish scientist Svante Paabo has won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discoveries that helped explain what makes humans unique and provided key insights into our immune system, including our vulnerability to severe COVID-19.
Techniques that Mr Paabo spearheaded allowed researchers to compare the genome of modern humans with that of other hominins — the Denisovans as well as Neanderthals.
"Just as you do an archaeological excavation to find out about the past, we sort of make excavations in the human genome," he said at a news conference held by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.
While Neanderthal bones were first discovered in the mid-19th century, only by understanding their DNA — often referred to as the code of life — have scientists been able to fully understand the links between species.
This included the time when modern humans and Neanderthals diverged as a species, around 800,000 years ago, said Anna Wedell, chair of the Nobel Committee.
"Paabo and his team also surprisingly found that gene flow had occurred from Neanderthals to
Homo sapiens, demonstrating that they had children together during periods of co-existence," she said.