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First 2022 Nobel Prize awarded

Scientist Svante Pääbo won the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries “concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution”, the governing body said on Monday.

“Through his research, Svante Pääbo accomplished something seemingly impossible: sequencing the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans. He also made the sensational discovery of a previously unknown hominin, Denisova,” the official Nobel Prize website stated.

BREAKING NEWS:
The 2022 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Svante Pääbo “for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.” pic.twitter.com/fGFYYnCO6J

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 3, 2022

Hominins are a category of early humans.

According to a statement released by the The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet “this ancient flow of genes to present-day humans has physiological relevance today, for example affecting how our immune system reacts to infections.”

The prize, arguably among the most prestigious in the scientific world, is awarded by the Nobel Assembly of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute and is worth SEK 10 million (USD 900,357). It is the first of this year’s batch of prizes.

2022 #NobelPrize laureate Svante Pääbo found that gene transfer had occurred from these now extinct hominins to Homo sapiens. This ancient flow of genes to present-day humans has physiological relevance today, for example affecting how our immune system reacts to infections. pic.twitter.com/QYHalqE8sb

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 3, 2022

The Nobel prizes

Created in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and wealthy businessman Alfred Nobel, the prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace have been awarded since 1901, with the economics prize being a later addition.

This year’s festivities should in any case mark the return of the Nobel banquet in Stockholm after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, an event redolent of old-world pomp and glamour after years of social distancing.

Winners of old

Last year’s medicine prize went to Americans David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian for the discovery of receptors in the human skin that sense temperature and touch, converting the physical impact into nerve impulses.

Past winners in the field include a string of famous researchers, notably Alexander Fleming, who shared the 1945 prize for the discovery of penicillin, and Robert Koch, who won already in 1905 for his investigations of tuberculosis.

Polish Nobel Prize winners

The latest Pole to win a Nobel prize was Olga Tokarczuk. She received in the field of literature, for “a narrative imagination that with encyclopaedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.”

The first Pole awarded with the Nobel Prize was Maria Skłodowska-Curie, who jointly with her husband Pierre Curie and H. A. Becquerel won the prize in physics in 1903.

In 1911, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Maria Skłodowska-Curie the individual Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of radium and polonium. She was the first woman to be awarded the prize and the first person to be awarded the Nobel Prize twice.

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