Felix Key Seminar: 'Evolutionary history of microbial pathogens'

Speaker name: Felix M. Key, Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology, Berlin, Germany

Talk title: Evolutionary history of microbial pathogens

Talk abstract: 

Human infections arise from different sources, including long-established pathogens that have circulated for millennia or bacteria that peacefully reside within our microbiome that solely seize an opportunity to infect. The Key Lab uses genomics to reconstruct pathogen evolution across these vastly different timescales. In this talk, I will share recent findings on both deep-time and rapid microbial evolution, improving upon our understanding how diseases emerge and how we can prevent them.

Suggested references:

• Light-Maka et al. Bronze Age Yersinia pestis genome from sheep sheds light on hosts and evolution of a prehistoric plague lineage. Cell (2025) weblink
• Runge et al. Probing the zooarchaeological record across time and space for ancient pathogens. bioRxiv (2025) weblink
• Fenk et al. Colonization, translocation, and evolution of opportunistic pathogens during hospital-associated infections. bioRxiv (2025) weblink