Post by Dr Yves LASSARD

Genetic analysis of Medicis’ remains reveals Renaissance-era malaria strains – and closes book on a murder mystery : "In 1562, Cardinal Giovanni de Medici, a scion of the dynastic family that dominated politics and banking in Tuscany during the Renaissance, died of malaria. Twenty-five years later, his older brother, Grand Duke Francesco de Medici, succumbed to the same disease. In a new study, Yale researchers in collaboration with paleopathologists from the University of Pisa in Italy conducted a genetic analysis of the brothers’ skeletal remains in search of several Plasmodium species, the parasitic protozoa that cause malaria. They found a novel strain of Plasmodium falciparum, the species that causes the deadliest form of human malaria, in the bones of Giovanni de Medici. The researchers also discovered molecular traces of P. falciparum and a second species, P. malariae, in the remains of Francesco de Medici."