Svante Pääbo

Svante Pääbo is the Director of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Pääbo has developed techniques that allow DNA sequences from archaeological and paleontological remains to be determined. This has allowed the reconstruction of the Neandertal genome and the discovery of Denisovans, a previously unknown group in Asia related to Neandertals. He also works on the evolution of genetic features that may underlie aspects of traits specific to humans. Pääbo is the 2022 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine “for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.”