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Ļć½¶Ö±²„anthropologistā€™s book, research provide new insight on infectious, chronic degenerative diseases

Ļć½¶Ö±²„anthropologistā€™s book, research provide new insight on infectious, chronic degenerative diseases

Contact: Sarah Nicholas

STARKVILLE, Miss.ā€”A Ļć½¶Ö±²„ faculty member provides critical updates regarding the spread of infectious diseases and rise of chronic and degenerative diseases in a second edition of her co-authored book ā€œEmerging Infections: Three Epidemiological Transitions from Prehistory to the Presentā€ released this summer. Her work on ancient DNA also has been published this summer in several highly lauded scientific journals.

Mississippi State anthropology Professor Molly Zuckerman lectures in front of a PowerPoint presentation.
Mississippi State anthropology Professor Molly Zuckerman is the co-author of ā€œEmerging Infections: Three Epidemiological Transitions from Prehistory to the Present,ā€ a book that discusses the spread of infectious diseases and the rise of chronic and degenerative diseases. (Photo by Megan Bean)

An Oxford University Press peer-reviewed book, ā€œEmerging Infectionsā€ is the first comprehensive review of the biological, social and environmental factors that contribute to emerging infectious diseases, like COVID-19, as well as surging rates of chronic and degenerative diseases, like cancer, from prehistory to the present day. It provides an overview of significant developments in health and disease research since the original work was published a decade ago.

Professor Molly K. Zuckerman, a biological anthropologist in MSUā€™s Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures who recently was appointed as a research associate in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institutionā€™s National Museum of Natural History, said, ā€œIn this new edition, we explore how both ancient and modern changes in human behaviorā€”from the start of farming to the rise of fast, low-cost international travelā€”has driven recent epidemics, including COVID-19 and obesity. By looking at our health and disease through deep time, not just the present, we can identify the most foundational causes of our current health problems and strategies for ameliorating them now and preventing them in the future.

ā€œWeā€™re facing a future where once controlled diseases, like measles, are surging back because of vaccine hesitancy, and antimicrobials are no longer as effective even against common diseases,ā€ Zuckerman added. ā€œAt the same time, weā€™re dealing with deadly new viruses coupled with still rising rates of our most common killers, such as heart disease and cancer.ā€

Book co-authors include Ron Barrett, associate professor of anthropology at Minnesotaā€™s Macalester College; Matthew Ryan Dudgeon, assistant professor of hospital medicine at Emory University; andĀ the late Emory Professor George J. Armelagos, who served as mentor to the other authors during their graduate studies.

Zuckerman also delves into how ancient infectious diseases and microbes can be used to address contemporary diseases in an Aug. 1 paperā€”ā€œā€ā€”co-authored with University of Oklahoma Anthropologist Courtney A. Hofman, released in the prestigious journal, Science.

In a recent issue of ā€”a journal published by Natureā€”Zuckerman and Hofman address using ancient dental samples as a diagnostic tool as part of their National Science Foundation-funded research into ancient DNA.Ā 

This past year Zuckerman has provided expertise to two national magazines on the ethics of working with human skeletons in teaching students and in research.

In an August 2023 cover story by Bridget Alex, Zuckerman discusses how modern scholars and students can make amends for unethical practices of the past for gathering human skeletons for teaching and study, and how todayā€™s practices must be guided by dignity and respect.

Zuckerman is part of a longstanding team of archaeologists and other scholars exhuming and learning from past human burials at what now is the campus of the University of Mississippi Medical Center as part of the years-longĀ .

For more details about MSUā€™s College of Arts and Sciences or the Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, visit or .

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