New research maps out thousands of years of human infectious disease.

A research team led by the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the University of Cambridge in the UK successfully extracted ancient DNA from 214 known human pathogens across the Eurasian continent, creating a map of human infectious diseases spanning thousands of years. This study, the largest of its kind on infectious disease history to date, provides important new insights into how interactions between humans and animals have profoundly altered the human health landscape. The findings were published in the journal Nature on the 9th, revealing not only the long history of the ongoing battle between humans and pathogens, but also providing important reference points for future public health strategies and vaccine design.