On July 18, the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience at Yale welcomed Svante Pääbo, director of the department of genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, to deliver the annual Kavli Distinguished Lecture. That evening, Pääbo joined members of the Kavli Institute for a working dinner, hosted by the Institute’s director, Pasko Rakic.
Pääbo has transformed the study of human evolution by developing a technique to sequence ancient DNA, and is perhaps best known for mapping the Neandertal genome. His work, which complements the traditional tools of anthropologists, has allowed us to trace our ancestry over millennia, showing when Homo sapiens diverged from Neandertal and other hominins.
But it is his ability to probe what makes our species unique, by looking at how the human brain evolved at the genetic level, in comparison to non-human primates, that makes his research so interesting to neuroscientists.
During his visit to Yale, Pääbo shared many of his recent findings with the large audience that attended his lecture, as well as during lengthy discussions with the members of the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience.