What would happen if a time traveler managed to reach the present from the distant past of several thousand years?
Physically, it would be impossible to differentiate it from our contemporaries, but this individual would have little chance of surviving.
And for good reason, it will not have benefited from the 10,000 years of natural selection that have shaped our genome and made us more resistant to disease.
The Human Evolutionary Genetics team, from the Institut Pasteur, publishes in the journal
Cell Genomics
the results of the analysis of the genome of 2800 individuals and thus recounts 10,000 years of evolution of our immune system.
“We are the descendants of those who survived past epidemics,
explains Lluis Quintana-Murci, professor at the Collège de France and head of the team to whom we owe this work.
This story shaped our genetic heritage and made us more resistant to certain diseases.”
When a pathogen enters our body...
This article is for subscribers only.
You have 83% left to discover.
Pushing back the limits of science is also freedom.
Keep reading your article for €0.99 for the first month
I ENJOY IT
Already subscribed?
Login
