What fossilised dental plaque can reveal about ancient humans’ diet, disease and environment could improve our future healthChristina Warinner is an archaeological geneticist. Based at the Centre for Evolutionary Medicine at the University of Zurich, she’s unlocking the secrets of the origins of disease by extracting DNA from fossilised dental plaque – the gunge that causes tooth decay.What is archaeological genetics? It’s about looking at genetic and proteonomic remains, biomolecules preserved in ancient archaelogical samples. Those samples can be anything from bones and teeth to the soft tissues from mummies, and the biomolecules can come from humans, animals, plants or bacteria. My job is to pull out the proteins and DNA and use the data to investigate the relationship between disease…
MedWorm Sponsor Message: The blue sky scrub collection offers something for every medical professional. Offering some of the finest scrub clothing in the world.
