Svante Pääbo with a Neandertal skull

An international consortium of researchers is sequencing the 3 billion bases that make up the genome of our closest relative – the Neandertal

The sequence is generated from DNA extracted from three Croatian Neandertal fossils, using novel methods developed for this project.

The Neandertal genome sequence will clarify the evolutionary relationship between humans and Neandertals as well as help identify those genetic changes that enabled modern humans to leave Africa and rapidly spread around the world, starting around 100,000 years ago.

Most recent Publication

Green, R.E., et al. A complete Neandertal mitochondrial genome sequence determined by high-throughput sequencing. Cell 134, 416-426 (2008).

Interview

Interview with Svante Pääbo on The Neandertal Genome Project (Dolan DNA Learning Center, CSHL)