--- title: "We’re Totally OK With This 48,500 Year Old “Zombie” Virus Being Resurrected" description: "Scientists have decided to resurrect ancient \"zombie\" viruses found in permafrost in an effort to head off one of climate change's freakiest eventualities." date: "2023-03-09" modified: "2023-03-09" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/zombie-virus-permafrost" categories: - "Health & Medicine" - "Medical" - "Pathogens" - "Viruses" tags: - "ancient virus" - "climate change" - "permafrost" - "viruses" --- # We’re Totally OK With This 48,500 Year Old “Zombie” Virus Being Resurrected ![Scientists have decided to resurrect ancient "zombie" viruses found in permafrost in an effort to head off one of climate change's freakiest eventualities.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* Scientists have decided to resurrect ancient "zombie" viruses found in Siberia's permafrost in an effort to head off one of climate change's freakiest eventualities. As [*CNN* reports](), the gambit is being conducted by French medical and genomics researcher Jean-Michel Claverie, who's testing whether or not a 48,500-year-old "zombie" virus he found could be reactivated as climate change causes its surroundings to melt. Claverie, who is professor emeritus at the Aix-Marseille University School of Medicine, has spent years studying what he calls "giant" viruses, which can be seen with regular microscopes rather than the kinds used to see the ones we're used to today. With climate change causing unprecedented permafrost melting, scientists like Claverie are concerned that there could be a "spillover" event in which viruses like the seven he's detected, jump hosts. And the risk to humans isn't necessarily zero, although researchers still don't know if these viruses can technically infect humans, let alone make them sick. "You must remember our immune defense has been developed in close contact with microbiological surroundings," Birgitta Evengård, professor at Umea University in Sweden, who was not involved in the research, told *CNN*. "If there is a virus hidden in the permafrost that we have not been in contact with for thousands of years, it might be that our immune defense is not sufficient," she said. "It is correct to have respect for the situation and be proactive and not just reactive. And the way to fight fear is to have knowledge." So far, Claverie has twice been able to revive viruses preserved in ice, [first in 2014](), when he and his team thawed a 30,000-year-old permafrost virus and observed it infecting a single-cell amoeba, and [again in 2015](), when they isolated a different virus type that infected amoebas. In his latest study, [published last month in the journal *Viruses*](), Claverie and his team detailed their discovery of five additional strains, the oldest of which clocks in at 48,500 years old, that were able to infect amoebas — and he's concerned about what these findings may represent for humans and animals. "We view these amoeba-infecting viruses as surrogates for all other possible viruses that might be in the permafrost," the French scientist told *CNN. "*We see the traces of many, many, many other viruses, so we know they are there." To be clear, Claverie did admit that he and his team "don’t know for sure" if the other viruses echoed in his research thus far are still alive, but it nevertheless still gives him pause. "Our reasoning is that if the amoeba viruses are still alive," he explained, "there is no reason why the other viruses will not be still alive, and capable of infecting their own hosts." As scary as that prospect is, it represents just another potential outcome of the uncontrolled doomsday scenarios we face with our rapidly-changing climate. **More on climate change horror stories:** [*Scientists Send Robot Under Doomsday Glacier, Alarmed by What It Found*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()