Date:
Location:
Harmit Malik
Principal Investigator, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Professor, University of Washington
Paleovirology: Ghosts and Gifts of Ancient Viruses
Abstract: Human genomes are ancient battlegrounds of arms races waged between viruses and their hosts for millions of years. Just as historians reconstruct battlefields to better understand historical battles, evolutionary biologists and virologists can reconstruct how ancient viruses affected their hosts by analyzing their ‘fossil’ remains in our genomes. Paleovirology is the study of such extinct viruses. Malik will discuss what the study of these viruses can tell us about old and new viral infections, the role viruses have played in shaping human biology, and the insights they can provide for combating pathogenic viruses today.
Host: Haig Lab
Co-sponsored by Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and the Harvard Museum of Natural History
This event will be livestreamed on the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture Facebook page. A recording of this program will be available on the HMSC Lecture Videos page approximately three weeks after the lecture.