The researcher Katalin Svante Pääbo has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine today, after his career was recognized with the 2018 Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research, on 6th June 2018.
As stated in the Minutes of the Jury, he was granted the Princess of Asturias Award for “having developed precise methods to study ancient DNA that have permitted the recovery and analysis of the genome of species that disappeared hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Svante Pääbo has opened up a new field of research, palaeogenomics, which has allowed to better understand the recent evolution of numerous species, including humans. Of particular relevance in this respect is the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome and the finding that genes from these and other extinct humans form part of the genetic pool of Humanity. His discoveries force us to rewrite the history of our species.”