Making Science Accessible: Multilingual and Simplified Versions of This Article: To bridge the gap between academic research and broader society, we produced multilingual versions of our article, each accompanied by paragraph-by-paragraph simplified explanations. This initiative aims to make cutting-edge research directly accessible to non-specialist audiences—regardless of language or scientific background—so that anyone can read and understand the source of scientific knowledge, not just summaries or digested versions. Created and curated by the authors themselves, these materials ensure both accuracy and clarity, and reflect our commitment to equity in knowledge dissemination. This approach aligns with the Pasteur 2030 strategy to fight inequality, including that between academic and non-academic worlds, and offers a model for inclusive and transparent science communication.
Official song of the article, explaining its content in a poetic way: Title: Long Before the Ships Arrived
Note: The lyrics has been produced with help of ChatGPT and the music using AISongGenerator
🎼 LYRICS [Intro] They said the story started When the sails hit the shore But buried in the silence Was something much more
[Verse 1] In bones beneath the forests, in teeth beneath the clay A whisper from the ancestors, not so far away A second name was hiding, not written in the lore Mycobacterium lepromatosis, knocking on the door
[Pre-Chorus] From Canada’s cold to Argentina’s shores It traveled wide before the invasion had begun s
[Chorus] Long before the ships arrived, Leprosy was here, alive In the hearts of trade and time, Crossing mountains, tracing lines Not just one species, but two to see, A twin tale of pathology Let the record now be clear— This story starts thousands years… before.
[Verse 2] Ancient DNA decoded, Histories rewritten now Lineages divergent— Still infecting us somehow A hidden strain surviving Nine thousand years or more While squirrels in the British woods Hold clues to what came before
[Pre-Chorus] A mystery from museums, a genome’s twist and spin From sacred sites and red squirrels to modern human skin
[Chorus] Long before the ships arrived, Leprosy had lived and thrived In the lands of maize and stone, It carved its path, unknown, alone A present clade, a ghostly tree, Silent threads of ancestry A tale of pain, survival, grace— Hidden deep in time and place
[Bridge] And still we ask the questions: How far, how fast, how wide? What hands once passed the fire Of illness, hope, and pride? With ancestors beside us, Their voices in our song— Let science be a vessel To carry them along
[Chorus] Long before the ships arrived, This story was alive And now it’s being told anew, With ancient truth and modern clues From molecules to memory, From North to South, across the sea— The past is not just gone, it breathes With us.
[Outro] They said the story started When the sails hit the shore… But leprosy was waiting— Thousand years before.
Images and Pictures Guided by Science: AI-Generated Illustrations
Each image in this section was produced through an iterative process combining AI generation, expert prompting, and scientific validation. Final visuals were refined and edited using Photoshop to ensure both aesthetic clarity and fidelity to the research. These illustrations aim to support public understanding through accessible, striking, and conceptually accurate visual storytelling.
Figure legend:Symbolic illustration of leprosy’s deep-rooted history and transcontinental legacy. A hand belonging to an Indigenous individual from the Americas, marked by visible signs of leprosy, grasps the American continent and extends toward South America—evoking the southward spread of the disease. Each finger symbolically represents a distinct biological lineage of Mycobacterium lepromatosis: i) The thumb depicts the ancestral lineage still infecting humans today; ii) The index finger represents the lineage currently infecting red squirrels, from which a red squirrel emerges, pointing toward the UK—symbolizing the transatlantic expansion from the Americas to the British Isles; iii) The middle and ring fingers represent lineages found only in ancient human skeletal remains, illustrated by skeletal distal phalanges, with the ring finger touching South America to signal the existence of a South American lineage. The hand mirrors the topology of the species’ phylogenetic tree, with each finger positioned to reflect the correct evolutionary order of lineages. This AI-generated image was iteratively refined through expert prompting, followed by manual post-processing and curation. It evokes both the deep ancestral connection of Indigenous peoples to their land and the historical imprint of infectious disease shaped by colonization.
Big news in #GlobalHealthHistory today. A species of bacterium that causes leprosy, discovered in 2008 in modern patients, has been proven to have been present in the Americas well before European arrival. More details in 🧵 below: www.science.org/content/arti… #GlobalMiddleAges #histmed #aDNA 🧪
