Svante Pääbo

Svante Pääbo is a Swedish geneticist who pioneered the study of ancient DNA and founded paleogenomics. His research recovered and analyzed genomes from Neanderthals and Denisovans.

Matthias Krings: A German geneticist whose work helped establish mitochondrial DNA analysis of Neanderthal remains. Krings and colleagues published the first Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA sequence in Pääbo’s research program.
Ancient DNA: Genetic material recovered from archaeological, fossil, or other historical remains. Pääbo’s methods made this damaged, scarce material usable for evolutionary research.
Neanderthal genome project: An international effort to sequence and analyze the Neanderthal genome. Pääbo’s team produced its landmark draft genome, enabling direct comparisons with modern humans.
University of Uppsala: A Swedish public research university founded in 1477. Pääbo studied medicine and earned his doctorate there before building his research career.
Human evolution: The evolutionary history of humans and their ancestors, documented through biological and archaeological evidence. Pääbo’s genomes added direct genetic evidence to debates about modern and archaic human relationships.
Johannes Krause: A German archaeogeneticist known for research on ancient DNA, pathogen evolution, and human prehistory. Krause collaborated with Pääbo on the genetic identification of Denisovans.
Polymerase chain reaction: A laboratory method that makes many copies of a selected DNA segment. Early ancient-DNA studies used amplification, but contamination could overwhelm the original molecules.
Denisovan: An extinct hominin known initially from fossils and DNA recovered at Denisova Cave in Siberia. Pääbo’s group recognized this previously unknown hominin through genetic evidence.
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology: A Leipzig research institute devoted to human evolution and related disciplines. Pääbo founded its genetics department and led the institution’s major ancient-genome program.
Introgression: The movement of genetic material between populations through hybridization and repeated backcrossing. Archaic-human genomes exposed lasting gene flow that simple branching trees could not explain.

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