The scientific and medical field are always in the business of keeping things alive or bringing them back to life. The scientific field is looking to bring back the original strain of the black death, which killed between 50 and 60 million people in Europe. Many teams are collecting DNA samples from the teeth of victims in plague pits.
The Black Death Can’t Die Yet
The Great Black Plague killed between 50 and 60 million people, one of the deadliest epidemics humanity has ever faced. It took out a 40% of the European population, and it didn’t stop there. The black death kept popping up throughout the continent, and it’s still around in developing countries.
The disease was in Europe for three centuries, but it’s completely disappeared. A team from Max Planck Institute MPI has been rebuilding the genomic sequence of the disease. They have reconstructed whole pathogen genomes from victims of the Great Plague of Marseille, which happened between 1720 and 1722. This is considered to be the last major outbreak of the black death in Europe.
Recreating the Disease Could Help Medicine
Because the black death has become less and less deadly, the researchers believe they’ve only been able to recreate extinct strains of the disease. This means that the history of the black plague, and how it became so powerful, has evaded science completely. The new teams want to recreate the disease to find better ways to fight it, particularly the strains that are still around.
The DNA being studied has been preserved for centuries. The team has been riddled with challenges through the process of rebuilding genomes. The current samples seem to be a strain of the Black Death that is no longer around.
The Source of the Black Death Still Evades Science
The Black Plague has devolved through time, but the research team is looking to bring it back to aid modern medicine. Wiping the disease out entirely will mark the end of a terrible disease, but will also bring a lot of knowledge as to its history.
It was believed that the Black Death was transmitted by rats and their fleas, and that these rats were traveling in merchant ships. However, it’s never been confirmed where the disease originated from. This research could give medicine and the scientific community many answers.
