2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winner Svanter Pebo. Photo/Nobel Prize Committee official website
According to Xinhua News Agency , on the afternoon of October 3, Beijing time, the Swedish Caroline Medical College announced that it would award the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Swedish scientist Swant Pebo for his contributions to the research of the extinct ancient human genome and human evolution .
A rich academic gold mine
This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded separately to Svanter Pebo, which is obviously different from previous awards. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in the past was generally awarded to three medical scientists, but this year it was awarded only one scientist; in the past, the award mainly awarded the results of basic medical research and clinical research, but this year's award was awarded to the anthropology field that studies human evolution. Although it is also related to medicine, it obviously crosses disciplines. This also proves that any major scientific research result may be favored by Nobel Prize .
This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine can be awarded the discovery of the extinct ancient human genome and human evolution, a rich academic gold mine, and doped with cultural and social factors. Because humans have always been interested in its origin: Where do we come from and what does our relationship with our ancestors? What makes us Homo sapiens different from other humans?
The origin of human beings, just like the origin of other organisms, requires evidence of physical objects (fossils) and genes, and requires mutual verification of the two. The origin of humans is also divided into two major stages. The parting between apes and humans was about 65 million years ago. After the extinction of the Cretaceous dinosaurs, a branch of mammals evolved into an ape; about 6 million to 7 million years ago, humans evolved.
In the process of human formation, there are also countless mysteries and gaps to be clarified, and even more so evidence of fossils and genes is needed. Svanter Pebo's contribution is mainly genetic discovery, and his pioneering research has given birth to a new discipline - paleogenomics. By revealing and comparing the genetic differences between all living humans and extinct humans, Svanter Pebo preliminarily explains what laid the foundation for us to become the unique human beings today.
2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine results are announced on site. Photo/CCTV News Weibo
Svanter Pebo may reveal that "everyone is not an isolated island"
Svanter Pebo's team found that Neanderthals are extinct relatives of today's human beings. Moreover, he also discovered the genetic relationship between the ancient human Denisovan , which was previously unknown, and modern humans.
After moving out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, these now extinct ancient humans (Neanderthals and Denisovans) had gene exchange and HOMO Homo sapiens and transferred. This ancient genetic exchange also affects our modern people, for example, the immune system of modern people responds to infection.
Anatomy The modern human Homo sapiens on first appeared in Africa about 300,000 years ago, but we also know that humans also have some very close relatives, such as the Neanderthals (an ancient human discovered in Neander Valley, Germany in 1856). They developed and lived outside Africa about 400,000 to 30,000 years ago and lived in Europe and West Asia, and became extinct before 30,000 years ago.
About 70,000 years ago, a group of Homo sapiens migrated from Africa to Middle East , and then migrated from there to the rest of the world. Therefore, Homo sapiens and Neanderthals coexisted for tens of thousands of years in most of the Eurasian continent .
Svanter Pebo and his colleagues first extracted DNA from Neanderthal remains and sequenced it, and published the sequencing results of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in 1997. Since then, Svanter Pebo has been continuously tracking and studying the relationship between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens.
In 2010, Svanter Pebo and his colleagues reconstructed the genome sketch of the Neanderthal fossil found in a cave in Croatia, and it was found that Neanderthals had intermarriage with the ancestors of people distributed in Eurasian . The Neanderthals and humans' most recent common ancestor, Homo sapiens, lived about 800,000 years ago.
Later research further provided details, that is, more Neanderthal women intermarried with men of Homo sapiens. In modern humans with European or Asian descent, about 1%-4% of the genome comes from Neanderthals.
In 2008, a 40,000-year-old finger bone fragment was found in the Denisova cave in the southern part of Siberia . This bone contains very well-preserved DNA. In 2014, Svanter Pebo and his colleagues completed the genetic sequencing of the finger bones of the Denisova Cave, and the results were even more amazing: Compared with all the known genomic sequences of Neanderthals and modern humans, the DNA sequence of the Denisova Cave Cave Finger bones is unique. As a result, Svante Pebo discovered a previously unknown human being named Denisovan. After
, Svanter Pebo conducted a comparative study on the genome sequences of contemporary humans from different regions of the world and found that Denisova also had genetic exchanges with Homo sapiens, indicating that there was intermarriage between the two groups. This relationship first appeared in the population of Melanesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, where individuals carry up to 6% of Denisovan DNA.
From these two main studies, it shows that no one knows better about Neanderthals and Denisovans than Svante Pebo. At the same time, he first revealed the evolutionary relationship between Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans from the genome, revealing the mating and genetic exchanges between humans after leaving Africa, and also providing genetic proof for the theory of origin of multiple regions of humans.
From a cultural and sociological perspective, Svanter Pebo's discovery also proves that each of us is not an isolated island, even the different groups in conflict today.
From ancient times to recent ancient times, the genetic exchange between different populations has shaped our humans today. Moreover, such communication also gives humans more physiological power. For example, the EPAS1 gene from the Denisovans gives the advantage of survival at high altitudes.
During the process of
, the secret of marriage between different populations in a historical time and revealing the relationship between people may be the fundamental reason why the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Svanter Pebo this year.
Written by Zhang Tiankan (columnist)
Editing / Ma Xiaolong
Proofreading / Wu Xingfa
