2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Unraveling the Secrets of Human Evolution
3 Outubro 2022
Escrito por Francisco H. C. FelixThe 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Svante Pääbo, for his groundbreaking discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.
Pääbo, a Swedish geneticist, has dedicated his career to unraveling the secrets of humanity’s history, using the power of genetics to analyze the remains of our ancestors.
His pioneering work in the 1990s, while a researcher at the University of Munich, focused on recovering and analyzing the DNA of Neanderthals, an extinct hominin species that inhabited Europe and Asia thousands of years ago.
The analysis of the Neanderthal genome, a feat considered impossible at the time, revolutionized the understanding of human evolution. Pääbo and his team were able to not only sequence the complete genome of a Neanderthal but also demonstrate that our species, Homo sapiens, interbred with Neanderthals.
This discovery challenged preconceived notions about human evolution and provided important evidence about genetic flows between different hominin species.
Pääbo, then director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, continued his research, expanding his studies to other extinct hominins.
In 2010, his team announced the discovery of a new hominin, called Denisovans, from a bone fragment found in Denisova Cave, Siberia. Analysis of the Denisovan genome revealed that they also interbred with Homo sapiens, contributing to the genetic diversity of current human populations, especially in Asia and Oceania.
Pääbo’s research has revolutionized the way we understand human evolution, uncovering the secrets of our genetic history and the mysteries of the relationship between different hominin species.
The 2022 Nobel Prize recognizes Pääbo’s fundamental contribution to evolutionary genetics and anthropology, opening doors to new discoveries and deepening our knowledge about our ancestors and the history of humanity.