Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut How did the devastating epidemics of plague and tuberculosis come about – and what can we learn from them today? Renowned paleogeneticist Prof. Dr. Johannes Krause, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, will give the 13th Loeffler Lecture at the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg in Greifswald, providing exciting insights into his research on the history of historical pathogens.
This research is made possible by state-of-the-art DNA technologies: scientists can now analyse tiny traces of pathogen DNA from human remains – a kind of ‘molecular fossil’. This allows us to trace how bacteria and viruses have evolved, spread and adapted to humans over thousands of years. Among other things, Krause’s research team reconstructed the genetic material of the plague bacterium from medieval bone finds and was able to trace the origins of the disease back to Central Asia. Even older DNA finds from the Stone Age show how the plague adapted to humans and fleas as carriers thousands of years ago – long before it became a devastating pandemic.