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Swedish Geneticist Svante Paabo’s Grounbreaking DNA Discoveries Fetches Him A Nobel Prize

And the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to the Swedish geneticist Svante Paabo. He was given the award thanks to his revolutionary discovery, which created a better understanding of the evolution of modern man.

Paabo, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, was honoured for what the Swedish Academy called his “discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.”

His win was celebrated by his co-workers, who threw him into the water at the Max-Planck Institute for evolutionary anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The geneticist was photographed holding his head in mock horror while his colleagues clapped in celebration of his win.

When COVID-19 erupted and sent parts of the world into a hasty lockdown, Paabo discovered that people infected with the virus who bear a gene variant inherited from Neanderthals were more liable to severe illness than those who do not.

The Nobel Prize is one of the most prestigious prizes in the world, available in several categories. It was the initiative of the Swedish biochemist and inventor of dynamite, Alfred Bernhard Nobel. He instituted the award to honour those who had contributed to the advancement of mankind.

Svante Paabo is one such man.

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