The Swedish geneticist on winning the Nobel prize, his laureate father and early man’s sensitive side
Photograph: Jens Schlueter/Getty ImagesPhotograph: Jens Schlueter/Getty Imagesgreyish neanderthal skeleton stands at the door of Svante Pääbo’s office, acting like a doorman to check up on his visitors, who have grown considerably in number since it was announced he was to receive a Nobel prize. It clutches a white party balloon in its left hand and is missing its right lower arm.
One of the first of many surprises in his research was to find out that the genetic differences between Neanderthals and all modern humans are far less than the differences between two random human beings alive today – around 3 million. “Our job is to find out which of those 30,000 are most important, because they tell us what makes us uniquely human,” he says.
He secretly started experiments at weekends, scared to share what he thought might be considered rather loony ambitions with his thesis adviser, but who, when Pääbo came up with results, ended up being very encouraging. The fact that his father, Sune Bergström, a biochemist, was himself awarded the Nobel prize in 1982 for his work on prostaglandins, had little influence on Pääbo’s own scientific path he says. “Only to the extent that my mother met him through her work. It was rathergreat fascination with science that was transmitted to me. She hugely encouraged my curiosity and supported me when I changed from medicine to natural sciences. She was by far the greater influence.
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