![]() ![]() Allan Wilson is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a pioneer in molecular evolutionary biology. So let us go back to the start of the field, back to the 1980s when the idea of recovering DNA from long-dead organisms was very much in the realm of science fiction. But Pääbo was not always the paleogenomics powerhouse that he is today. His influence is undoubtedly more predominant now since he won a Nobel Prize for his discoveries of extinct hominins, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, and for his contributions to understanding human evolution. With a heavy Swedish accent, his voice is soft and soothing, and it stands in marked contrast to the complete unrivaled power he holds over the field of ancient DNA research. This is how scientists in the discipline fondly, and sometimes not so fondly, describe Pääbo. Svante Pääbo, he is “The Dark Lord of Ancient DNA,” one of his colleagues told me. Jones, author of Ancient DNA: The Making of a Celebrity Science, dives into the historical context of Svante Pääbo’s contributions to DNA research in this original piece. ![]() ![]() How has the study of ancient DNA been altered by Svante Pääbo’s work? Elizabeth D. In fall of 2022, Swedish geneticist Svante Pääbo won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution. ![]()
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