Viviane Slon is a paleogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. ^{[1] [2]} She identified that a teenage girl born 90,000 years ago had both Neanderthal and Denisovan parents. She was selected as one of Nature's 10 in 2018. ^[3]

Early life and education

Slon completed her doctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. ^[4] She won the 2017 Dan David Prize. ^[5] She worked at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University on the earliest human fossils outside Africa. ^{[6] [7]} She studied the Qafzeh 9 Skull, looking at developmental malocclusions. ^[8]

Research and career

In 2018 Slon was appointed a postdoctoral researcher working on neanderthals at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. ^[9] She develops techniques to remove hominin DNA from sediments. ^{[10] [11] [12]} Her doctoral supervisor Svante Pääbo decoded the Denisovan gene. ^{[13] [14]} Slon visited the Denisova Cave during a symposium, where over one thousand bones are excavated a year. ^[13]

As her first project, Slon reported the DNA from the tooth of the fourth Denisova individual ever found on earth. ^{[15] [16]} She also co-led a team that found Denisovan DNA in excavated dirt as an alternative to finding rare hominin bones. ^[3]

In 2018, Slon and her colleagues published the genome of Denny, a hybrid hominin. ^[17] DNA was extracted from a hominin bone found in a Middle Pleistocene layer. ^{[13] [18] [19]} Using genetic analysis and radiocarbon dating, the hominin was identified as a girl born more than 50,000 years ago to a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. ^{[13] [20] [21]} The work was covered in BBC News, National Geographic, EurekAlert!, The Atlantic and Archaeology magazine. ^{[22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27]}

Slon was selected as one of Nature's 10 in 2018. ^[3]

References