Read about Svante Pääbo net worth, age, wife, children, height, family, parents, genetics works, awards as well as other information you need to know.
Introduction
Svante Pääbo is a Swedish geneticist specializing in the field of evolutionary genetics and a Nobel prize laureate. As one of the founders of paleogenetics, he has worked extensively on the Neanderthal genome. He was appointed director of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany in 1997. He is also a professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan. In 2022, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Early life
| Name | Svante Pääbo |
| Net Worth | $3 million |
| Occupation | Geneticist |
| Age | 67 years |
| Height | 1.83m |
Svante Pääbo was born on April 20, 1955 (age 67 years) in Stockholm Sweden. He is the son of Sune Bergström, and Karin Pääbo. He grew up with his mother, Estonian chemist Karin Pääbo. His father was biochemist Sune Bergström, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Bengt I. Samuelsson and John R. Vane in 1982. He earned his Ph.D. from Uppsala University in 1986 for research investigating how the E19 protein of adenoviruses modulates the immune system.
Career
Pääbo is known as one of the founders of paleogenetics, a discipline that uses the methods of genetics to study early humans and other ancient populations. In 1997, Pääbo and colleagues reported their successful sequencing of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), originating from a specimen found in Feldhofer grotto in the Neander valley. In August 2002, Pääbo’s department published findings about the “language gene”, FOXP2, which is lacking or damaged in some individuals with language disabilities.
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Pääbo announced in 2006 a plan to reconstruct the entire genome of Neanderthals. In 2007, he was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year. In February 2009, at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago, it was announced that the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology had completed the first draft version of the Neanderthal genome. Over 3 billion base pairs were sequenced in collaboration with the 454 Life Sciences Corporation. This project, led by Pääbo, will shed new light on the recent evolutionary history of modern humans.
In March 2010, Svante Pääbo and his coworkers published a report about the DNA analysis of a finger bone found in the Denisova Cave in Siberia; the results suggest that the bone belonged to an extinct member of the genus Homo that had not yet been recognized, the Denisova hominin. The discovery of the Denisovan was the first time a previously unknown hominin was discovered by means of DNA analysis.
Svante Pääbo and his colleagues published a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome in the journal Science in May 2010. He and his team also concluded that there was probably interbreeding between Neanderthals and Eurasian (but not Sub-Saharan African) humans. There is growing support in the scientific community for this theory of admixture between archaic and anatomically-modern humans, though some archaeologists remain skeptical about this conclusion. This admixture of modern human and Neanderthal genes is estimated to have occurred roughly between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago in Southern Europe.
In 2014, Pääbo published the book Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes where he, in the mixed form of a memoir and popular science, tells the story of the research effort to map the Neanderthal genome combined with his thoughts on human evolution. In 2020, Pääbo determined that more severe impacts upon victims including the relative incidence of the necessity of hospitalization requirements, and vulnerability to the COVID-19 disease have been associated via DNA analysis to be expressed in genetic variants at chromosomal region 3, features that are associated with European Neanderthal heritage. That structure imposes greater risks that those affected will develop a more severe form of the disease. The findings are from Pääbo and researchers he leads at the Planck Institute and the Karolinska Institutet.
Awards and honours
Svante Pääbo received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in 1992, which is the highest honor awarded in German research. Pääbo was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2000. In 2005, he received the prestigious Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine. In 2008, Pääbo was added to the members of the Order Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts. In the same year, he received the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement.
In October 2009, the Foundation For the Future announced that Pääbo had been awarded the 2009 Kistler Prize for his work isolating and sequencing ancient DNA, beginning in 1984 with a 2,400-year-old mummy. In June 2010, the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (FEBS) awarded him the Theodor Bücher Medal for outstanding achievements in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. In 2013, he received Gruber Prize in Genetics for groundbreaking research in evolutionary genetics.
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In June 2015, Svante Pääbo was awarded the degree of DSc (honoris causa) at NUI Galway. He was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society in 2016, and in 2017, was awarded the Dan David Prize. In 2018 he received the Princess of Asturias Awards in the category of Scientific Research, in 2020 the Japan Prize, in 2021 the Massry Prize, and in 2022 the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. However, As of 2021, Pääbo has an h-index of 162 according to Google Scholar and 127 according to Scopus.
Wife
Svante Pääbo is married to Linda Vigilant, they had their wedding in 2008. His wife is an American primatologist and geneticist. However, in Pääbo’s 2014 book Neanderthal Man: In Search of Lost Genomes, he stated that he is openly bisexual – he assumed he was gay until he met his wife Linda Vigilant, an American primatologist and geneticist whose “boyish charms” attracted him. They have co-authored many papers. The couple is married and raising a son and a daughter together in Leipzig. As of mid-2022, Svante Pääbo and his wife Linda Vigilant are still married and living a happy life with their two children.
Svante Pääbo net worth
How much is Svante Pääbo worth? Svante Pääbo net worth is estimated at around $3 million. His main source of income is from his career as a geneticist. Svante Pääbo’s salary per month with other career earnings is over $500,000 dollars annually. He is one of the richest and most influential geneticists in the world. His remarkable career has earned him some luxurious lifestyles and some fancy cars. Svante Pääbo stands at an appealing height of 1.83m and has a good body weight.