Italian scientists said they had found evidence of how viruses helped change the course of human evolution and said their discovery could help in the design of better drugs and vaccines.
They found more than 400 different mutations in 139 genes that play a role in people’s risk of catching viruses — a finding that may also help explain why some people sail through flu season unscathed while others seem to catch every bug around.
Researchers from the Scientific Institute IRCCS, Milan University and the Politecnico di Milano analysed the genomes of 52 populations from different parts of the world with exposure to a wide range of viruses over 200,000 years of human evolution.
The researchers, whose work was published in the Public Library of Science PLoS Genetics journal, looked at places where the climate has provided friendly conditions for viruses — such as warm, wet regions of Africa.
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