The Viral Paleontologist Who Unearths Pathogens' Deep Histories

The main flu in circulation every year, H1N1, has likely a direct descendant of the Spanish Flu from the 1918 global pandemic.

" In 2022, he published a complete genome of Spanish flu from a lung taken from a 17-year-old girl who died of pneumonia in 1918. From this genome, he learned that our seasonal H1N1 influenza virus is likely a direct descendant of that pandemic-causing pathogen. "

The same scientist found measles from 1912, that it was substantially the same as measles 2024, that a measles 2024 vaccine worked against measles 2012 and that measles likely originated ~2500 years ago, at the same time as a surge in the development of urban areas of sufficient size to support the sustained spread of measles.