Thread by @LucyvanDorp

Our work is now officially out in @MolBioEvol: #Malaria viewed through the lens of an eradicated European strain tinyurl.com/qkqmaxe. (1/7) #published #genomics

On our hunt for past malaria we were fortunate to obtain a collection of blood-stained medical #microscope #slides prepared for diagnostics purposes in 1944 in Spain, one of the last footholds of #malaria in Europe. (2/7)

From these slides, and with a bit of lab wizardry from the team @uni_copenhagen @IBE_Barcelona, we were able to obtain a full #Pvivax genome - we also obtained a #Pfalciparum partial genome tinyurl.com/y2wsljcj. (3/7)

Analysing the DNA of this 75-year old eradicated parasite uncovered a close affinity to strains in circulation in the Americas today. We could use this historic genome to infer the introduction of #Pvivax malaria from Europe to the Americas dating to the 15th century. (4/7)

This divergence is in line with European colonists introducing tertian #malaria into the #Americas and suggests indigenous peoples of the Americas were not infected before their contact with Europeans. (5/7)

This has been one of my favourite projects to date and I’m so excited about the potential of museum and historic collections for reconstructing the global spread of #disease through time. The future of past malaria is looking increasingly #sciexciting! (6/7)

Thanks to our team including @peregx9 @AdrienRieux @MarcdeManuel @ChristianCare2
@marce_save @rfregel @SilvieHuijben @MarquesBonetLab and especially @BallouxFrancois @UGI_at_UCL @IBE_Barcelona. (7/7)