Genome sequencing is rewriting the history of disease outbreaks – but without social context, it can tell only part of the story

From the Black Death to the COVID-19 pandemic, combining the genetic data of a pathogen with historical records, archaeological artifacts and epidemiological studies can uncover its origins.

By: Marc Zimmer, Connecticut College, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: May 12, 2026

Words: 1,356

Last Updated: 2 months, 2 weeks ago

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By Marc Zimmer, Connecticut College

Fingerprinting transformed police investigations by making it possible to place a suspect at a crime scene with physical evidence. Similarly, genome sequencing has changed how disease detectives study outbreaks by allowing them to read a pathogen’s genes as a biological record of where it came from and how it spread.

One way to think about sequencing is to imagine a virus or bacteria’s genome as a recipe book. …

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