A Coronavirus Epidemic , Struck 20,000 Years Ago, DNA Evidence Shows.<br />'Daily Mail' reports that a new study found <br />evidence that a coronavirus outbreak struck <br />East Asia approximately 20,000 years ago. .<br />A team of researchers led by the University<br />of Queensland looked at the specific genes that <br />code for proteins that interact with coronaviruses.<br />Among people of East Asian ancestry, researchers found evidence of natural selection for adaptations that would have served to lessen disease severity.<br />Kirill Alexandrov of the Queensland University of Technology, one of the paper's authors, said that the information in the human genome goes back tens of thousands of years. .<br />In the course of the epidemic, <br />selection favored variants of <br />pathogenesis-related human genes <br />with adaptive changes presumably <br />leading to a less severe disease, Kirill Alexandrov, synthetic biologist, Queensland University of Technology, via 'Daily Mail'.<br />By developing greater insights <br />into the ancient viral foes, we gain <br />understanding of how genomes <br />of different human populations <br />adapted to the viruses that have <br />been recently recognized as <br />a significant driver of human evolution, Kirill Alexandrov, synthetic biologist, Queensland University of Technology, via 'Daily Mail'.<br />The full findings of the study can be <br />found in the journal 'Current Biology.'
