Scientists reconstruct the genome of medieval strains of the pathogen responsible for leprosy
Thursday, June 13, 2013 - 13:06
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Why was there a sudden drop in the incidence of leprosy at the end of the Middle Ages? To answer this question, biologists and archeologists reconstructed the genomes of medieval strains of the pathogen responsible for the disease, which they exhumed from centuries old human graves. Their results, published in the journal Science, shed light on this obscure historical period and introduce new methods for understanding epidemics.