Page 76 - Cascade I SHPS School Magazine 2024

year, had conferred the greatest
benefit to humankind.
Nobel Prizes are awarded
A BRIEF NOTE ABOUT THE NOBEL in the fields of physics, chem-
PRIZE IN PHYSIOLOGY FOR 2022 istry, physiology or medicine,

literature and peace. Notably
absent from this list is an award
t was awarded to the
I Swedish geneticist, for mathematics. The prize
Svante Pääbo. This honour ceremonies take place annually.
was for his research in The recipient is known as a
the field of genomes of ‘Nobel Laureate’ and will receive
extinct hominins and a gold medal, a diploma and a
human evolution. Pääbo monetary award. The Nobel
is a scientist, and one of Prize may not be shared among
the pioneers for research more than three individuals.
in paleogenetics. That is, However, the Nobel Prize for
the use of genetics to study peace can be awarded to organi-
early humans and ancient zations made up of more than
ancestors of the present Professor Svante Paabo three people.
day homo sapiens. Pääbo The first Nobel Prize was
did his post-doctoral research at the Institute for Molecular awarded in the year 1901.
Biology II, University of Zurich, Switzerland. He then moved The International Committee
to USA as a post-doctoral researcher in biochemistry at the of the Red Cross has been
University of California, Berkeley, and worked on the genome awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
of extinct mammals. In 1990, he returned to Europe to become three times. These were in
professor of general biology at the University of Munich. In 1997 the years 1917, 1944 and
he became founding director of the Max Planck Institute for 1963. Two Nobel Laureates
Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. He studied a got this award twice, but
specimen found in Neander valley. In 1997, Pääbo successfully surprisingly not in the same
completed the sequencing of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA. field. They were Marie Curie
In 2002, he published findings about the ‘language gene’ called for physics and chemistry
FOXP2. This gene seems to be mutated in some individuals with and Linus Pauling for chemis-
language disabilities. try and peace. Rabindranath
In 2006, Pääbo began the trial to reconstruct the entire
genome of the Neanderthals. He suggested that there probably Tagore was the first Indian
was inter-breeding between Neanderthals and Eurasian humans and also the first Asian to be
about 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. In 2009 it was announced awarded the Nobel Prize in
that the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology had 1913. Albert Einstein received
completed the first draft version of the Neanderthal genome. Over his Nobel Prize in 1922. It is
3 billion base pairs were sequenced. In 2010, Pääbo published a surprise that two people
a report about the DNA analysis of a finger bone found in the did not win the Nobel Prize.
Denisova Cave in Siberia. This was the bone that belonged to One is Mahatma Gandhi,
an extinct member of the genus Homo, known as the Denisova the Father of our Nation.
hominin. Also published was a draft sequence of the Neanderthal The other person is Stephen
genome. Hawking, the celebrated and
honoured researcher.

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