Impact of Infectious Disease on Humans & Our Origins

Summary:
As the COVID-19 pandemic illustrates, infectious diseases can have profound influences on their host populations. Human evolution has unquestionably been shaped by past infections. However, humans have also shaped pathogen dynamics and virulence via a multitude of factors. Some ancient human influences range from changes in social organization, group size, and the exploitation of more varied ecosystems. More recently, developments such as settlement, agriculture, technology, rapid long-distance travel, medicine, and global economic integration, continue to shape epidemics and the human host populations. The goal of this public symposium is to explore how infectious agents and humans shape each other’s evolutionary trajectories.

Event Sessions

Media for each talk can be played by clicking on icons in the "Media" column, or by clicking on the individual talk titles below and then the attachment file at the bottom of the page.

Media	Session	Speakers
	Welcome & Opening Remarks	Pascal Gagneux, University of California, San Diego
	SARS CoV2: A Third Coronavirus Takes to the Air	Robert (Chip) Schooley, UC San Diego
	Dengue and Zika: Mosquito-borne viral infections	Sujan Shresta, La Jolla Institute for Immunology
	Are there human-specific infectious diseases?	Nissi Varki, UC San Diego School of Medicine
	Streptococcal molecular mimicry: Pathogenesis, autoimmunity, and vaccines	Victor Nizet, UC San Diego
	The microbiome and infections of the reproductive tract in human females	Amanda Lewis, UC San Diego
	Salmonella in humans and other animals	Manuela Raffatellu, UC San Diego
	Malignant malaria in humans	Elizabeth Winzeler, UC San Diego
	Human adaptive immunity against viral infections	Susan Kaech, Salk Institute
	Audience Questions & Answers	All Speakers

Event Glossary

A glossary for this event is available as a Searchable List and a PDF.