Science
Why Svante Pääbo Getting The 'Nobel For Medicine' Is Good News
Aravindan Neelakandan
Oct 05, 2022, 04:49 PM | Updated 04:49 PM IST
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On 3 October 2022 the Nobel Assembly announced that Svante Pääbo has won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine ‘for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution’.
The scientist working with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany is considered as the principal founding father of paleogenomics – a new discipline.
Odyssey of Pääbo with ancient DNA started as early as 1985 when he made a genetic study of an Egyptian mummy. He pointed out the contamination of DNA from such ancient specimens. His work lead to the creation of rigorous protocols for extracting ancient DNA without contamination.
In 1997 he joined the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
The year 2010 was an important year for Pääbo.
That year he and his colleagues reported a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, created from three individuals. The genome thus drafted, collected from three Neanderthals, was composed of more than 4 billion nucleotides from three individuals.
This was subsequently compared with genomes of five modern humans.
The study revealed that 'Neanderthals shared more genetic variants with present-day humans in Eurasia than with present-day humans in sub-Saharan Africa.'
The same year Pääbo and colleagues extracted mitochondrial DNA from a finger-bone discovered at Denisova a cave in Altai mountains, Siberia, Russia.
The analysis of this maternal line DNA belonging to what can be called the deep palaeontological time revealed a new hominin species.
Dr. Niraj Rai, the Group Head for Ancient DNA Lab at Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, explained how the team of Pääbo and his colleagues helped solve an archaeological puzzle by playing genome detectives:
This bone's morphology was insufficient to determine if it came from a contemporary human, a Neanderthal, or something else. When the nuclear DNA of this bone was examined, however, it revealed a unique scenario: the group represented by this bone is a sister group of Neanderthals that separated from them after modern humans' ancestors parted from Neanderthals.
The team announced this discovery in their paper in Nature titled: 'The complete mitochondrial DNA genome of an unknown hominin from southern Siberia.'
Dr. Gyanshewar Chaubey of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) who has published important papers on population genetics and ancient population movements and admixtures in India, is jubilant regarding the awarding of this year Nobel Prize to Pääbo.
Amazing recognition to #HumanEvolution ðð! I sincerely hope that the #IndianGrantAgencies as well as #GrantDecision makers would consider this discipline to #Fund @NirajRai3 @PMOIndia @prashbio #NobelPrize2022 pic.twitter.com/xXDkWnTloQ
— Gyaneshwer Chaubey (à¤à¥à¤à¤¾à¤¨à¥à¤¶à¥à¤µà¤° à¤à¥à¤¬à¥) (@gyanc7) October 3, 2022
Talking to Swarajya, he stated that this recognition of the domain of ancient DNA studies is heartening to him. He pointed out how the conventionally held model of humans replacing Neanderthals, a very binary and conflict-based model, got changed to a more flexible, dynamic model of humans and Neanderthal having genetic and perhaps cultural exchanges as well.
We all have Neanderthal and Denisovan genetic components in us. This makes the scenario of our palaeontological past more complicated, richer and more interactive.
He hoped this would make the grant agencies in India pay more attention and promote more projects in this domain in the country - which as of now is not getting a good treatment.
Dr. Niraj Rai is equally jubilant.
Being a crossroad for modern humans India may offer a lot to the current model of human evolution https://t.co/EQ9RALdA9a
— Niraj Rai (@NirajRai3) October 3, 2022
Dr. Chaubey also draws attention to another important episode in the odyssey of the present Nobel laureate.
In September 2020, amidst the raging first wave of Covid-19, Pääbo and his colleague Hugo Zeberg (also from Max Planck Institute) published a paper in Nature: 'The major genetic risk factor for severe COVID-19 is inherited from Neanderthals'.
It concluded that a particular gene cluster, making people vulnerable to respiratory failures, was 'inherited from Neanderthals and carried by around 50% of people in south Asia and around 16% of people in Europe.' This they called the ‘Neanderthal core haplotype.'
Subsequently in 2021, a team of Indian scientists, which also included Dr. Chaubey, made some critical observations on the Pääbo paper in a paper published in Nature's Scientific Reports:
Zeberg and Pääbo used the data of higher susceptibility to the disease among the Bangladeshi population living in UK10 to support their findings. By considering the effect of sex, age, socio-economic deprivation and region, this report found that people of Bangladeshi origin had double the risk of mortality as compared to people of British origin. However, the higher mortality rate for Bangladeshi population in the UK needs more detailed investigation on comorbidity, genetic admixture as well as local environment and socio-economic circumstances in their particular British context.
Then they pointed out that earlier, in another study with respect to Covid-19 gateway related haplotype:
Our studies on ACE2 identified a haplotype present among 20% and 60% of European and South Asian populations, respectively, which appears to be responsible for the low case fatality rate among South Asian populations. This result was also consistent with the real-time infection rate and case fatality rate among various states of India
The study of ancient genomics is a path filled with mines. They could be distorted by people to further racial politics. Digging into past in colonial times actually gave rise to pseudo-scientific concepts like Aryan race and Aryan conquest of Harappans and race-based origin theory for the Indian caste system.
Time and again studies have spurred such racial politics in India. However, detailed genetic studies have revealed a much complex picture of ancient Indian past showing admixture, interaction and co-existence of many ethnic communities.
Detailed genetic studies have consistently debunked purist fantasies and conflict-models.
A hard-hitting editorial published in Nature on this aspect of the studies of ancient DNA said:
Indeed, presented correctly alongside insights from other disciplines, ancient-DNA research can be a powerful weapon against bigotry. Studies documenting migrations can drive home the point that present-day peoples in one area often share few genetic links with ancient peoples who lived in the same place. And when they do focus on relatively recent times, DNA projects can highlight the diversity of past peoples who otherwise might be seen as homogenousUse and abuse of ancient DNA, Nature, 29-Mar-2018, Vol.555
Unfortunately in India, the importance of paleogenomics is not appreciated at all, according to Dr. Chaubey.
This negligence is despite, as a tweet of Dr. Niraj Rai points out, India being blessed with rich paleogenomic data that has continuity over millennia. We also have a very good scientific human resources which have been proved to be on par with the best of international research groups working in this young and important field. (Also imagine the dangers of such data falling into wrong hands).
Dr. Rai points out that there is what he calls the 'dominance of global north' in this newly emerging field. There may be various reasons for this, he explains, from prohibiting high costs to healthcare research being of higher priority.
Paleogenomics does not stop with diving deep into past of human ancestry. The knowledge about past genetic trajectories, admixtures and interactions, provides insights into present day health problems and can lead to valuable life-saving solutions with respect to large populations in specific geo-historic regions.
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Aravindan is a contributing editor at Swarajya.
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