"The Nobel Prize Was Stubborn"... The 7th Father-Son Winners, Who Is Svante P??bo? [Reading Science]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] "(When I first heard the news of the award) I thought it was a prank newly devised by my colleagues." This was what Svante P??bo (67), a Swedish paleogeneticist, said shortly after being selected as the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate on the afternoon of the 3rd (Korean time). The award was so unexpected that even he was surprised.

P??bo, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, is a paleogeneticist who elucidates the process of human evolution through genetic analysis. This field studies the genomes preserved in ancient artifacts or skeletal remains to research the past. It is unfamiliar to the general public and, unlike previous laureates in physiology or medicine who focused on disease eradication, it is not 'practical.' Although his work frequently appeared in leading international journals such as Nature and Cell, he had never been mentioned as a Nobel Prize candidate before.

Regarding P??bo's award, the selection committee of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the deciding body, is being evaluated as having made a 'stubborn' choice again this year. Despite P??bo's immense fame and significant social impact, he surpassed prominent candidates such as the developers of the COVID-19 vaccine (mRNA). The existing principle of awarding the Nobel Prize, which emphasizes 'fundamental principle elucidation' and pioneering new fields over 'practicality' or topicality, was upheld. The Nobel Prize is especially known for valuing basic research rather than applied research. Last year, the institute selected laureates such as David Julius, a professor at the University of California, who elucidated the molecular basis of human tactile and pain perception. P??bo's award is the first in the history of the Nobel Prize for a paleogeneticist. Although some have criticized that the Swedish origin of P??bo might have influenced the Nobel institutions, the prevailing opinion is that he 'deserved' the award considering his achievements.

During his graduate studies in the 1980s, P??bo learned genetic analysis techniques that were then unfamiliar and gained fame as a geneticist who completely overturned the understanding of human evolution by analyzing DNA from bones found in ancient graves or caves and comparing them with the modern human genome. In this process, he also developed new techniques to separate ancient DNA samples from contamination by bacteria, foreign substances, or excavators. Notably, in a 2010 paper, he revealed that interbreeding occurred between Neanderthals and modern humans, and that Europeans and East Asians inherited 1-4% of their genes from Neanderthals, causing a major stir. In 2008, he also discovered that a 40,000-year-old finger bone found in a cave in southern Siberia belonged to a completely new ancient species called the Denisovans.

Based on P??bo's research results, scientists have confirmed that many chronic diseases in modern humans, such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases, partly originated from ancient extinct species like Neanderthals and Denisovans. Additionally, during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, P??bo published research suggesting that the high number of infections and severe cases among Europeans was influenced by Neanderthal genes.

P??bo was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1965 and earned his Ph.D. from Uppsala University. After working in the United States, he was appointed a professor at the University of Munich in Germany in 1990 and has served as director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology since 1999. He is also the seventh Nobel laureate who is a child of a Nobel laureate. In his 2015 book, "In Search of Lost Genomes," published domestically as well, P??bo revealed that his father is Sune Bergstr?m, the 1982 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate, and that he was born out of wedlock to an Estonian mother.