… by tracing the evolution of a gene variant that makes people more susceptible to the disease, researchers have been able to track the rise and fall of TB over the past 10,000 years—and have shown how it reshaped the immune systems of people living in Iron Age Europe. “We are [all] the descendants of people who survived past epidemics,” says author Lluis Quintana-Murci, a population geneticist at the Pasteur Institute and the College of France. This paper helps identify “which are the true pathogens that have changed our DNA and made us more resilient.”
Source: How tuberculosis reshaped our immune systems | Science | AAAS