On Oct. 13, 2011, an international team, led by researchers at McMaster University and the University of Tubingen in Germany, announced the they had sequenced the entire genome of the Black Death, one of the most devastating epidemics in human history.

This marked the first time scientists had been able to draft a reconstructed genome of any ancient pathogen, which will allow researchers to track changes in the pathogen’s evolution and virulence over time.