Nobel win for Swede who unlocked secrets of Neanderthal DNA

Swedish scientist Svante Paabo won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday for discoveries on human evolution that unlocked secrets of Neanderthal DNA that helped us understand what makes humans unique and provided key insights into our immune system, including our vulnerability to severe COVID-19.

Techniques that Paabo spearheaded allowed researchers to compare the genome of modern humans and that of other hominins — the Denisovans as well as Neanderthals.

“Just as you do an archeological excavation to find out about the past, we sort of make excavations in the human genome,” he said at a news conference held by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.

While Neanderthal bones were first discovered in the mid-19th century, only by understanding their DNA — often referred to as the code of life — have scientists been able to fully understand the links between species.