NOMIS Awardee and Nobel laureate Svante Pääbo has been featured in the latest NOMIS Insight film, which details the journey of his recently concluded research project, A Cell and Molecular Approach to Research Into the Biological Basis of the Human Condition. Created in collaboration with Vollformat, the film presents Pääbo’s pioneering research and his insights into the physiological and biological features that make present day humans unique.
A Cell and Molecular Approach to Research Into the Biological Basis of the Human Condition project
What sets humans apart from other organisms? This fascinating question has been the focal point of NOMIS Awardee Svante Pääbo’s research for several decades. Pääbo sequenced the Neandertal genome, identifying genetic changes in the human genome that differentiate humans from Neandertals, chimpanzees and other apes. These differences constitute a “genetic recipe” for modern humans. He also discovered a previously unknown hominin, Denisova, and later that interbreeding occurred between Neandertals and Denisovans, which has implications for understanding the human brain and health.
Pääbo’s NOMIS project, A Cell and Molecular Approach to Research Into the Biological Basis of the Human Condition, which was conducted at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology from 2017 to 2023, sought to analyze these genetic differences and identify those that have functional consequences — in particular with respect to the cognitive and social abilities that have made possible the development of rapidly changing technology, large societies, art and perhaps modern language. By developing new techniques to compare the modern human genome with that of our ancestors, Pääbo and his team have advanced our understanding of the physiological and biological features that make present day humans unique.
In his new project, A Molecular View of Human Uniqueness, Pääbo will continue exploring the genetic differences between present-day humans and Neandertals and Denisovans to understand which of these had truly functional consequences.
NOMIS Insight films
Often the fruit of a long quest and years of careful research, insight advances our understanding of the world. Insight films highlight the knowledge and insights gained by NOMIS Distinguished Scientist and Scholar Awardees through their unique, collaborative and interdisciplinary NOMIS research projects. By sharing their research journeys — the successes and the challenges — NOMIS Awardees are contributing to the advancement of science and human progress.
