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This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Swedish scientist Svante Paabo for his discoveries on human evolution. Thomas Perlmann, secretary of the Nobel Committee, announced the winner Monday at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Paabo has spearheaded research comparing the genome of modern humans and our closest extinct relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, showing that there was mixing between the species. (10/3)

“Through his pioneering research, Svante Pääbo — this year’s Nobel Prize laureate in physiology or medicine — accomplished something seemingly impossible: sequencing the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans,” the Nobel committee said in a statement. “Pääbo’s discoveries have generated new understanding of our evolutionary history,” the statement said, adding that this research had helped establish the burgeoning science of “paleogenomics,” or the study of genetic material from ancient pathogens. (Mueller, 10/3)

Paabo, son of the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Sune Bergström, has been credited with transforming the study of human origins after developing approaches to allow for the examination of DNA sequences from archaeological and paleontological remains. His key achievements include sequencing an entire Neanderthal genome to reveal the link between extinct people and modern humans. (Pollard, Johnson and Grover, 10/3)