News from the Benches: Sequencing the Black Death

We were excited to be part of an international team — led by researchers at McMaster University and the University of Tubingen in Germany — that sequenced the entire genome of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death, one of the most devastating epidemics in human history. This marks the first time scientists have been able to draft a reconstructed genome of any ancient pathogen, which will allow researchers to track changes in the pathogen's evolution and virulence over time. This work was published in Nature. Dr. Joe McPhee from the Coombes lab was also involved in this work. From left: David Earn, Hendrik Poinar, Brian Golding, Brian Coombes, Kirstin Bos).