Svante Paabo wins Nobel Prize in Medicine for findings on human evolution

Sweden-born Svante Paabo on Monday was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ‘for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution’ at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm.

Paabo has made the sensational discovery of Denisova, a previously unknown hominin. He also sequenced the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans.

Taking to Twitter, The Nobel Prize congratulated Paabo and wrote, “Say good morning to our new medicine laureate Svante Paabo! Paabo received the news while enjoying a cup of coffee. After the shock wore off, one of the first things he wondered was if he could share the news with his wife, Linda.

Paabo has found that gene transfer had occurred from now extinct hominins to Homo Sapiens.