MIKHAIL GELFAND IN TBILISI - Ancient DNA and the History of Epidemics

The legendary pop-science figure and accomplished scientist, bioinformatician, Doctor of Biological Sciences, and member of the European Academy, Mikhail Gelfand, is coming to Georgia. On October 16th in Tbilisi, he will deliver a pop-science lecture titled "Ancient DNA and the History of Epidemics": First, we learned how to sequence DNA. Then, the complete genomes of bacteria were decoded. After that, ancient bacterial DNA from archaeological finds was sequenced. It turned out that we could learn quite a lot about the origins and spread of pathogens, and therefore about the history of epidemics, dating back to the Neolithic era (spoiler: that's when it all began).