10 Oct 2022 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
Source: The Hindu; The Indian Express
News: Recently Swedish scientist Svante Pääbo was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for mapping the Neanderthal genome.
About Nobel Prize:
- Alfred Nobel(inventor of dynamite) established prizes in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace.
- First Nobel awards in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace were handed out in 1901.
- The Nobel in economics, officially known as the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences, was created by Sweden’s central bank in 1968 in memory of Alfred Nobel.
- Each prize worth of 10 million kronor (nearly $900,000) is handed out on Dec. 10 the date of Nobel’s death with a diploma and gold medal.
- Anyone from around the world such as university professors, lawmakers, previous Nobel laureates and the committee members themselves are eligible to submit nominations for the Nobel Prizes.
- According to the wish of Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Peace Prize is presented in Norway while the other awards are handed out in Sweden.
Key Contributions of Svante Pääbo:
- Developed research methodologies to extract ‘clean’ DNA from thousands of years old human fossils.
- Evolve methodologies to read the genetic information contained by old fossils.
- Earlier Deduction method were used by scientists where after studying genomes of current human beings extrapolate the information into the past. Paabo’s methodologies have eliminated scientifically valid but indirect and uncertain deduction methods and rely on direct observation. For example: His revelation that one particular skull bone, called petrous, preserves DNA better than the rest of the body was very useful in knowing genetic information.
- He has been awarded Nobel Prize for Physiology for the year 2022 “for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.”
- Academy said in its press release that through his pioneering research, Svante Pääbo accomplished something seemingly impossible: sequencing the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans.
- Paabo also discovered the existence of Denisovans (an unknown sub-species of the human family) who lived around the same time as the Neanderthals.
Importance of Svante Pääbo’s discoveries:
- His research established an entirely new scientific discipline known as paleogenomics.
- Helps the scientific community to better understand human evolution and migration. For Example: Scientific community got indications from powerful sequence analysis that archaic hominins may also have mixed with Homo sapiens in Africa. But, accelerated degradation of archaic DNA in tropical climates lead to failure in sequencing genomes from extinct hominins in Africa.
- Through Svante Pääbo’s discoveries,the scientific community understood the influence of archaic gene sequences of human’s extinct relatives on the physiology of present-day humans. Examples: Present day Tibetans can survive on high altitudes due to the presence of Denisovan version of the gene EPAS1 among them and also immune response to different types of infections are affected by Neanderthal genes.
- Paabo’s research has shown that the Neanderthals and Denisovans are not only ancestors of modern humans, but also co-existed for about 20,000 years, during which they interacted and inter-bred with each other. Example: Some modern human population contains approximately one and three per cent Neanderthals genome.
- Paabo produced remarkable genetic evidence regarding interbreeding among different sub-species of human beings in ancient times. Example: Findings from human skeleton showed that his/ her father was a Neanderthal and the mother a Denisovan. In another case, findings from the human skeleton showed that it was four generations subsequent to the mating between ancestors of modern humans and Neanderthal.
- Implications for modern science: Paabo’s work establishes the genetic evolution of human beings. Modern human being’s response towards infections or strength of immune system got affected due to ancient flow of genes to present day humans.
- These groundbreaking findings will help to know the composition of ancient populations in the Indian region through genome mapping of the Rakhigarhi excavation site in Haryana.
Article:
1.Svante Paabo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine: Mapping Neanderthal genome.
2.Medicine Nobel goes to Swedish scientist Svante Pääbo for sequencing Neanderthal genome
3.Nobel season is here: 5 things to know about the prizes
Article Link:
1.https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-sci-tech/nobel-prize-physiology-or-medicine-swedens-svante-paabo-8188295/
2.https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/medicine-nobel-goes-to-svante-p%C3%A4%C3%A4bo-for-sequencing-neanderthal-genome/article65965761.ece
3.https://indianexpress.com/article/world/swedens-svante-paabo-wins-nobel-prize-in-medicine-for-research-on-evolution-8187477/
Yojna IAS daily current affairs eng med 10 Oct
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