Archaeoepidemiology...

I'm still working at catching up on my magazines' past issues and am currently reading a past issue of Archaeology. In it is an article on the analysis of medieval DNA in relation to disease resistance. To my great surprise there is a modern population of people with a mutation in their DNA that gives them a level of immunity to diseases such as AIDS. Who knew?? So, in studying medieval DNA, researchers are seeking the origin of the mutated allele and trying to determine if having this allele also helped resistance to medieval epidemics such as the Black Death. This work is currently only taking place in Europe (from what I have read), but the exciting thing is that with the ongoing research, including tracking where certain diseases appeared and when, and with the creation of a DNA database, researchers may be able to determine how much disease risk is due from genetics versus environmental factors, all of which could lead to new therapies for modern disease management.

This is really cool. :)