Svante Pääbo (; born 20 April 1955) is a Swedish
geneticist
A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic process ...
and Nobel Laureate who specialises in the field of
evolutionary genetics
Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and among populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and popu ...
.
As one of the founders of
paleogenetics
Paleogenetics is the study of the past through the examination of preserved genetic material from the remains of ancient organisms. Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling introduced the term in 1963, long before the sequencing of DNA, in reference to ...
, he has worked extensively on the
Neanderthal genome.
In 1997, he became founding director of the Department of Genetics at the
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network.
Well-known scientists currently based at ...
in
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
, Germany. Since 1999, he has been an honorary professor at
Leipzig University
Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...
; he currently teaches molecular evolutionary biology at the university.
He is also an adjunct professor at
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan.
In 2022, he was
awarded the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, acco ...
"for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution".
Education and early life
Pääbo was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1955 and grew up there with his mother,
Estonian
Estonian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe
* Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent
* Estonian language
* Estonian cuisine
* Estonian culture
See also ...
chemist Karin Pääbo (; 1925–2013), who had escaped from the
Soviet invasion in 1944
and arrived in Sweden as a refugee during World War II. He was born through an extramarital affair of his father, Swedish biochemist
Sune Bergström
Karl Sune Detlof Bergström (10 January 1916 – 15 August 2004) was a Swedish biochemist. In 1975, he was appointed to the Nobel Foundation Board of Directors in Sweden, and was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University, t ...
(1916–2004),
who, like his son, became a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (in 1982).
Pääbo is his mother's only child; he has via his father's marriage a half-brother, Rurik Reenstierna (also born in 1955), who only learned Svante was his brother in 2004.
Pääbo grew up as a native Swedish speaker.
In a 2012 interview with the Estonian newspaper ''
Eesti Päevaleht
(Estonia Daily) is a major daily Estonian newspaper, from the same publishers as the weekly '' Eesti Ekspress''.
Another newspaper under the same name is published weekly in Stockholm, Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is ...
'', he said that he self-identifies as a
Swede, but has a "special relationship with Estonia".
In 1975, Pääbo began studying at
Uppsala University
Uppsala University (UU) () is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation.
Initially fou ...
, serving one year in the Swedish Defense Forces attached to the School of Interpreters. Pääbo earned his Ph.D. from Uppsala University in 1986 for research investigating how the E19
protein
Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residue (biochemistry), residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including Enzyme catalysis, catalysing metab ...
of
adenovirus
Adenoviruses (members of the family ''Adenoviridae'') are medium-sized (90–100 nm), nonenveloped (without an outer lipid bilayer) viruses with an icosahedral nucleocapsid containing a double-stranded DNA genome. Their name derives from t ...
es modulates the
immune system
The immune system is a network of biological systems that protects an organism from diseases. It detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens, from viruses to bacteria, as well as Tumor immunology, cancer cells, Parasitic worm, parasitic ...
.
Research and career
Pääbo is known as one of the founders of
paleogenetics
Paleogenetics is the study of the past through the examination of preserved genetic material from the remains of ancient organisms. Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling introduced the term in 1963, long before the sequencing of DNA, in reference to ...
, a discipline that uses
genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...
to study
early humans and other ancient species.
From 1986 to 1987, he did postdoctoral research at the Institute for Molecular Biology II,
University of Zurich
The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...
, Switzerland.
As an
EMBO Postdoctoral Fellow, Pääbo moved to the United States in 1987, accepting a position as a postdoctoral researcher in biochemistry at the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
, where he joined
Allan Wilson's lab and worked on the genome of extinct mammals.
In 1990, he returned to Europe to become professor of general biology at the University of Munich
The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...
, and, in 1997, he became founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network.
Well-known scientists currently based at ...
in Leipzig, Germany.[
In 1997, Pääbo and colleagues reported their successful sequencing of ]Neanderthal
Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...
mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA
Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the DNA contained in ...
), originating from a specimen
Specimen may refer to:
Science and technology
* Sample (material), a limited quantity of something which is intended to be similar to and represent a larger amount
* Biological specimen or biospecimen, an organic specimen held by a biorepository f ...
found in Feldhofer grotto in the Neander valley
The Neandertal (, also , ; sometimes called "the Neander Valley" in English) is a small valley of the river Düssel in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located about east of Düsseldorf, the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia. ...
.
In August 2002, Pääbo's department published findings about the "language gene", FOXP2
Forkhead box protein P2 (FOXP2) is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the ''FOXP2'' gene. FOXP2 is a member of the forkhead box family of transcription factors, proteins that Regulation of gene expression, regulate gene expression by DNA- ...
, which is mutated in some individuals with language disabilities.
In 2006, Pääbo announced a plan to reconstruct the entire genome of Neanderthals. In 2007, he was named one of ''Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' magazine's 100 most influential people of the year.
In February 2009, at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...
(AAAS) in Chicago, it was announced that the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (, shortened to MPI EVA) is a research institute based in Leipzig, Germany, that was founded in 1997. It is part of the Max Planck Society network.
Well-known scientists currently based at ...
had completed the first draft version of the Neanderthal genome. Over 3 billion base pair
A base pair (bp) is a fundamental unit of double-stranded nucleic acids consisting of two nucleobases bound to each other by hydrogen bonds. They form the building blocks of the DNA double helix and contribute to the folded structure of both DNA ...
s were sequenced in collaboration with the 454 Life Sciences
454 Life Sciences was a biotechnology company based in Branford, Connecticut that specialized in high-throughput DNA sequencing. It was acquired by Roche in 2007 and shut down by Roche in 2013 when its technology became noncompetitive, although ...
Corporation.
In March 2010, Pääbo and his coworkers published a report about the DNA analysis of a finger bone found in the Denisova Cave
Denisova Cave () is a cave in the Altai Mountains, Bashelaksky Range of the Altai Mountains in Siberia, Russia.
It is widely known for having provided items of great archaeology, paleoarchaeological and paleontology, paleontological interest. ...
in Siberia
Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
; the results suggest that the bone
A bone is a rigid organ that constitutes part of the skeleton in most vertebrate animals. Bones protect the various other organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells, store minerals, provide structure and support for the body, ...
belonged to an extinct
Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...
member of the genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
''Homo
''Homo'' () is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus ''Australopithecus'' and encompasses only a single extant species, ''Homo sapiens'' (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively called ...
'' that had not yet been recognised, the Denisova hominin. Pääbo first wanted to classify the Denisovans as a species of their own, separate from modern humans and Neanderthals but changed his mind after peer-review. In this context, Svante Pääbo was able to show that the TKTL1 gene discovered by Johannes F. Coy has a single amino acid substitution in Neanderthals compared to modern humans. This change probably influenced neuronal development and may have contributed to the difference in brain structure between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.
In May 2010, Pääbo and his colleagues published a draft sequence of the Neanderthal
Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...
genome in the journal ''Science
Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...
''. He and his team also concluded that there was probably interbreeding between Neanderthals and Eurasian (but not Sub-Saharan African) humans. There is general mainstream support in the scientific community for this theory of interbreeding between archaic and modern humans
Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans occurred during the Middle Paleolithic and early Upper Paleolithic. The interbreeding happened in several independent events that included Neanderthals and Denisovans, as well as several unidentifi ...
. This admixture of modern human and Neanderthal genes is estimated to have occurred roughly between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, in the Middle East.
In 2014, he published the book '' Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes'' where he, in the mixed form of a memoir and popular science, tells the story of the research effort to map the Neanderthal genome combined with his thoughts on human evolution.[Peter Forbes (20 February 2014]
Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes by Svante Pääbo – review
In 2020, Hugo Zeberg and Svante Pääbo determined that more severe impacts upon victims of the COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...
disease, including the vulnerability to it and the incidence of the necessity of hospitalisation, have been associated via DNA analysis to be expressed in genetic variants at chromosomal region 3, features that are associated with European Neanderthal
Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...
heritage. That structure imposes greater risks that those affected will develop a more severe form of the disease.[The ancient Neanderthal in severe COVID-19]
, ''Science News
''Science News'' (''SN'') is an American monthly magazine devoted to articles about new scientific and technical developments, typically gleaned from recent scientific and technical journals. The periodical has been described as having a scop ...
'', 30 September 2020. Retrieved 13 December 2020. The findings were described in a Nature article with Hugo Zeberg from Karolinska Institute
The Karolinska Institute (KI; ; sometimes known as the (Royal) Caroline Institute in English) is a research-led medical university in Solna within the Stockholm urban area of Sweden and one of the foremost medical research institutes globally ...
t and Svante Pääbo from the Max Planck Institute.
, Pääbo has an h-index
The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with success indicators such as winning t ...
of 167 according to Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of Academic publishing, scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in Beta release, beta in November 2004, th ...
and of 133 according to Scopus
Scopus is a scientific abstract and citation database, launched by the academic publisher Elsevier as a competitor to older Web of Science in 2004. The ensuing competition between the two databases has been characterized as "intense" and is c ...
.
Awards and honours
In 1992, he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bu ...
, which is the highest honour awarded in German research. Pääbo was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences () is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for promoting nat ...
in 2000, and in 2004 was elected an international member of the National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
. In 2005, he received the prestigious Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine
Established in 1986, the Louis-Jeantet Prizes are funded by the Louis-Jeantet Foundation, ''Fondation Louis-Jeantet'' and awarded each year to experienced researchers who have distinguished themselves in the field of biomedical research in one ...
. In 2008, Pääbo was added to the members of the Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts. In the same year, he received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a nonprofit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest-achieving people in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet one ano ...
. In October 2009, the Foundation For the Future announced that Pääbo had been awarded the 2009 Kistler Prize
The Kistler Prize (1999-2011) was awarded annually to recognize original contributions "to the understanding of the connection between human heredity and human society", and was named after its benefactor, physicist and inventor Walter Kistler. ...
for his work isolating and sequencing ancient DNA, beginning in 1984 with a 2,400-year-old mummy. In June 2010, the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) awarded him the Theodor Bücher Medal for outstanding achievements in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. In 2013, he received Gruber Prize in Genetics for groundbreaking research in evolutionary genetics
Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and among populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology. Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and popu ...
. In 2014, Pääbo was awarded the Swedish :sv:Learning Ladder Prize. In June 2015, he was awarded the degree of DSc (honoris causa) at NUI Galway
The University of Galway () is a public research university located in the city of Galway, Ireland.
The university was founded in 1845 as "Queen's College, Galway". It was known as "University College, Galway" (UCG) () from 1908 to 1997 and as ...
. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...
in 2016,[ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: ] and in 2017, was awarded the Dan David Prize
The Dan David Prize is an international group of awards that recognize and support outstanding contributions to the study of history and other disciplines that shed light on the human past. Nine prizes of $300,000 are awarded each year to outstand ...
. In 2018, he received the Princess of Asturias Awards
The Princess of Asturias Awards (, ), formerly the Prince of Asturias Awards from 1981 to 2014 (), are a series of annual prizes awarded in Spain by the Princess of Asturias Foundation (previously the Prince of Asturias Foundation) to individuals ...
in the category of Scientific Research and the Körber European Science Prize, in 2020 the Japan Prize
is awarded to individuals whose original and outstanding achievements in science and technology are recognized as having advanced the frontiers of knowledge and served the cause of peace and prosperity for mankind. As of 2024, the Japan Prize h ...
, in 2021 the Massry Prize
The Massry Prize was established in 1996, and is administered by the Meira and Shaul G. Massry Foundation. The Prize, of $40,000 and the Massry Lectureship, is bestowed upon scientists who have made substantial recent contributions in the biomedi ...
and in 2022 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, acco ...
for sequencing the first Neanderthal genome.
Personal life
Pääbo wrote in his 2014 book '' Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes'' that he is bisexual
Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...
. He assumed he was gay until he met Linda Vigilant, an American primatologist and geneticist whose "boyish charms" attracted him. “I had many relationships with men, but I also had girlfriends now and again”. They have co-authored many papers, are married and raising a son and a daughter together in Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...
.
Distinctions
* : Commander Grand Cross of the Royal Order of the Polar Star (21 March 2024) (KmstkNO)
See also
* '' Origins of Us'' (2011 BBC series)
* '' First Peoples'' (2015 PBS series)
* List of Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded annually by the Swedish Karolinska Institute to scientists in the various fields of physiology or medicine. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the 1895 will of Alfred N ...
* List of Swedish Nobel laureates
References
External links
Svante Pääbo
at the Max Planck Society
The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...
Human Evolutionary Genomics Unit (Svante Pääbo)
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paabo, Svante
1955 births
Living people
Scientists from Stockholm
Uppsala University alumni
Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Members of the French Academy of Sciences
Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences
Foreign members of the Royal Society
Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Population geneticists
Swedish geneticists
Paleogeneticists
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners
Swedish people of Estonian descent
Recipients of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 3rd Class
Recipients of the Lomonosov Gold Medal
Swedish LGBTQ scientists
Swedish bisexual men
LGBTQ Nobel laureates
Bisexual academics
Bisexual scientists
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
Swedish Nobel laureates
Max Planck Institute directors