Sweden’s Svante Paabo is 2022 Nobel Prize in Medicine winner

Svante Paabo, a Swedish scientist, won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning human evolution and the genomes of extinct hominins, the award-giving body announced.

The prize, undoubtedly one of the most prestigious in the scientific world, is awarded by the Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute and is worth 10 million Swedish crowns (nearly $900,000).

Thomas Perlmann, the Nobel Committee for Physiology or Medicine’s secretary, who called Paabo with the news, said the winner was overwhelmed, speechless, and very happy on hearing the news.

Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Sune Bergstrom’s son, Svante Paabo, has been credited with transforming the study of human origins after developing approaches to permit the examination of DNA sequences from archaeological and paleontological remains.

His key achievements include sequencing an entire Neanderthal genome to reveal the between modern humans and extinct people.

Paabo was also the one to shed light upon the existence of a previously unknown human species called Denisovans, from an almost 40,000-year-old fragment of a finger bone discovered in Siberia

The Nobel prizes were created in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and wealthy businessman Alfred Nobel. The Nobel prizes for achievements in sciences, literature, and peace have been awarded since 1901 and the economics prize was added later on.