Svante Pääbo is a Swedish geneticist and Nobel Laureate who specialises in the field of evolutionary genetics. As one of the founders of paleogenetics, he has worked extensively on the Neanderthal genome. In 1997, he became founding director of the Department of Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Since 1999, he has been an honorary professor at Leipzig University; he currently teaches molecular evolutionary biology at the university. He is also an adjunct professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan.
Pääbo in 2016
Pääbo at the 2014 Nobel Conference
Pääbo showed the medal of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Fumio Kishida (February 1, 2023).
The Royal Order of the Polar Star, sometimes translated as the Royal Order of the North Star, is a Swedish order of chivalry created by King Frederick I on 23 February 1748, together with the Order of the Sword and the Order of the Seraphim. The Order of the Polar Star is intended as a reward for Swedish and foreign "civic merits, for devotion to duty, for science, literary, learned and useful works and for new and beneficial institutions".
Cross and star of the order
Cross, ribbon and star of a Commander Grand Cross
Collar of the Order of the Polar Star and the badge of the order
Grand Officer (Commander 1st Class) Star of the Order