Harmit Malik
Principal Investigator, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

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. Harmit Malik discusses what the study of these viruses can tell us about old and new viral infections, the role they have played in shaping human biology and the insights they can provide for combating pathogenic viruses today.

Prather Lecture Series

Free and open to the public.
Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138. 

Free event parking at the 52 Oxford Street Garage

Presented by the Harvard Museum of Natural History in collaboration with the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University