I wrote recently how evolution and phylogenetic analysis of HIV isolates has provided evidence that the progenitor to HIV jumped into humans in Cameroon or a nearby area. Obviously it's a topic that's interesting to me, but may seem a bit esoteric to some. RPM over at Evolgen has a new post showing another application of phylogenetic analysis to HIV that may be of interest to readers here, where infectious disease epidemiology meets CSI.
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Hi Tara,
Thanks for your comment. Katherine was comforting me that at least some of the 2 million that I can't get a date with are underage or very elderly.
Anyway, I was reading this bit about the HIV Cameroon story that really sold me on forensic epidemiology. They were saying they found an single polymorphism that allows the change to humans from monkeys, and it changed back when they put it back into monkeys. It struck me as a very elegant way to find therapeutic targets.
It puts this whole business in a frame of less than esoteric significance.