DNA fingerprinting traces global path of plague

November 2, 2010

By hammersmith

[Source: Inside NAU] – An international team of scientists has traced major plague pandemics such as the Black Death back to their roots using DNA fingerprinting analyses.

Researchers from Ireland, China, France, Germany and the United States, including Northern Arizona University’s Paul Keim and David Wagner, have turned back the clock to examine the past 10,000 years of global plague disease events. Their findings regarding the plague pathogen, Yersinia pestis, will be published in an upcoming issue of the international science journal, Nature Genetics.

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