Background Recent advances in sequencing have facilitated large-scale analyses of the
metagenomic composition of different samples, including the environmental microbiome of air, …

Motivation In ancient DNA research, the authentication of ancient samples based on
specific features remains a crucial step in data analysis. Because of this central importance, …

Syphilis is a globally re-emerging disease, which has marked European history with a
devastating epidemic at the end of the 15 th century. Together with non-venereal treponemal …

Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague, has been prevalent among humans for at least
5000 years, being accountable for several devastating epidemics in history, including the …

Smallpox, caused by the variola virus (VARV), was a highly virulent disease with high mortality
rates causing a major threat for global human health until its successful eradication in …

The broadening utilisation of ancient DNA to address archaeological, palaeontological, and
biological questions is resulting in a rising diversity in the size of laboratories and scale of …

In ancient DNA research, the degraded nature of the samples generally results in poor yields
of highly fragmented DNA; targeted DNA enrichment is thus required to maximize research …

Background Hansen’s disease (leprosy), widespread in medieval Europe, is today mainly
prevalent in tropical and subtropical regions with around 200,000 new cases reported annually…

The cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) is one of the Late Pleistocene megafauna species that
faced extinction at the end of the last ice age. Although it is represented by one of the largest …

Museum specimens and histologically fixed material are valuable samples for the study of
historical soft tissues and represent a possible pathogen-specific source for retrospective …