Japan Prize 2020 laureate Swedish geneticist Svante Paabo poses with his trophy during the Japan Prize presentation ceremony in Tokyo, Japan April 13, 2022. Japan Prize this year awarded the winners including the years of 2020 and 2021. (Photo: REUTERS)

The prize, arguably among the most prestigious in the scientific world, is awarded by the Nobel Assembly of Sweden's Karolinska Institute and is worth 10 million Swedish crowns (900,357 USD).

Paabo, son of the Nobel Prize-winning biochemist Sune Bergström, has been credited with transforming the study of human origins after developing approaches to allow for the examination of DNA sequences from archaeological and paleontological remains.

His key achievements include sequencing an entire Neanderthal genome to reveal the link between extinct people and modern humans.

He also brought to light the existence of a previously unknown human species called the Denisovans, from a 40,000-year-old fragment of a finger bone discovered in Siberia.

Svante Paabo's most cited paper in the Web of Science was published in 1989, with 4,077 citations, said David Pendlebury, from UK-based scientific data analytics provider Clarivate.