2022 Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to Svante Pääbo

2022 Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to Svante Pääbo. He made the discovery of a previously unknown hominin, Denisova.
Pääbo also found that gene transfer had occurred from these now extinct hominins to Homo sapiens following the migration out of Africa around 70,000 years ago.
This ancient flow of genes to present-day humans has physiological relevance today, for example affecting how our immune system reacts to infections.
Pääbo’s seminal research gave rise to an entirely new scientific discipline; paleogenomics. By revealing genetic differences that distinguish all living humans from extinct hominins, his discoveries provide the basis for exploring what makes us uniquely human.