Peek behind the paper: Non-destructive extraction of DNA from preserved tissues in medical collections

Enrique Rayo is a research affiliate at the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine  (University of Zurich; Switzerland) with a background in molecular and anthropological biology, focusing on ancient DNA (aDNA) and paleogenomics. Rayo is currently interested in developing methods for extracting and sequencing aDNA from museum specimens and archaeological sites, using these techniques to reconstruct genomic information from past organisms.  Here, Rayo gives an overview of his recently published paper, which reports a method to obtain aDNA from museum samples without damaging them, by collecting and analyzing DNA that has leached into the liquid that preserves the samples.    Please provide a short summary of your paper  Museum specimens and samples from anatomical collections represent a possible pathogen-specific source...