Genomics and evolution of the Black Death

黑死病是古代最致命的瘟疫之一，改变了人类历史的进程。我们将重建和分析其病原体--鼠疫耶尔森氏菌--的进化，从黑死病及以后的人类骨骼遗骸中采样。我们将确定随着时间的推移改变鼠疫流行毒力的突变，使我们能够独特地洞察有史以来可供研究的病原体出现的最戏剧性的例子。

The Black Death was one of the most lethal plagues of antiquity and changed the course of human history. We will reconstruct and analyse the evolution of its causative agent – the bacterium Yersinia pestis – sampled from human skeletal remains dating back to the Black Death and beyond. We will determine the mutations that changed the virulence of plague epidemics through time, enabling a unique insight into the most dramatic example of pathogen emergence that has ever been available for study.