Professor Lynteris awarded ERC Advanced Grant to study the origins of zoonosis

Professor Christos Lynteris, Professor of Medical Anthropology and Director of Research and Director of Impact and Innovation in the Department of Social Anthropology, has been awarded a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant to investigate how the idea of diseases passing between animals and humans emerged and transformed medicine, public health, and state governance before the advent of germ theory.

The award will support an ambitious new project examining the emergence of zoonosis, or the transmission of diseases from animals to humans, as a scientific and governmental problem between 1770 and 1870. By exploring a critical century in the development of modern medicine, the research will shed new light on how ideas about disease transmission across species helped shape scientific knowledge, public health systems, state administration, and human-animal relations.

The project will investigate, for the first time, how zoonosis emerged at the crossroads of medicine, pathology, physiology, epidemiology, veterinary medicine, and public health. During this period, diseases that appeared to move between animals and humans posed new challenges for scientists, physicians, veterinarians, and governments. Professor Lynteris’s research will examine how these challenges gave rise to new forms of knowledge and new approaches to governing both human and animal populations.

Rather than viewing this history through the lens of later bacteriological discoveries, the project asks how zoonosis functioned as a transformative problem in its own right. The research argues that the emergence of zoonosis was not simply a stepping stone towards germ theory, but a development that actively reshaped modern medicine and governance at a crucial moment in their formation.

By tracing how diseases such as rabies, anthrax, glanders, and trichinosis came to be understood and managed as zoonotic threats, the project will investigate two central questions: what forms of scientific knowledge contributed to the creation of zoonosis as a new disease category, and how did this category bring together the governance of animals and humans in different political and social contexts?

The research will explore how zoonosis transformed contemporary understandings of contagion, reconfigured relationships between humans and animals, and encouraged new ways of thinking about the management of space, environments, and populations. As concerns about disease transmission increasingly crossed species boundaries, new forms of surveillance, regulation, and intervention emerged, linking veterinary and human medicine in unprecedented ways.

The project also highlights the global and imperial dimensions of this history. While focusing on developments in Europe between 1770 and 1870, the work will examine how scientific understandings of zoonosis became entangled with colonial and decolonial projects in Algeria, Argentina, and Saint-Domingue.

Through case studies of glanders, rabies, and anthrax, the project will reveal how ideas about disease travelled through imperial networks and became connected to broader questions of governance, control, and resistance. In the case of trichinosis, the research will investigate how efforts to monitor disease in the Duchy of Brunswick contributed to the emergence of what is considered the world’s first zoonotic disease surveillance system.

Ultimately, the project aims to develop a new historical understanding of zoonosis as both an intellectual and political force. By examining how animal-to-human disease transmission became a central concern for science and government, it will provide a fresh framework for understanding the intertwined development of modern medicine, public health, state power, and multispecies relations during a pivotal period of social and scientific transformation.

The funding comes through the ERC Advanced Grant scheme, one of Europe’s most prestigious and competitive research programmes. Advanced Grants support established researchers with exceptional track records, enabling them to pursue ambitious, curiosity-driven projects with the potential to generate major advances in knowledge.

This year, the ERC has awarded €838 million to 319 leading researchers across Europe through the Horizon Europe programme. The grants are designed to support frontier research that pushes the boundaries of knowledge and explores new intellectual territory.

Commenting on the awards, President of the European Research Council, Professor Maria Leptin, said: “The new Advanced Grant projects demonstrate the creativity, ambition, and intellectual boldness that frontier research requires.

“The ERC’s role is to support researchers who are asking difficult scientific questions and want to venture into unexplored territory in pursuit of new knowledge. Congratulations to all our new grantees. They are of 33 different nationalities – testament to Europe’s strength as a destination for outstanding scientific talent, regardless of origin. We need to step up investment for Europe to lead in science and innovation.”

Professor Lynteris’s project promises to transform understanding of the historical foundations of zoonotic disease and the role it played in shaping modern systems of medicine, public health, and governance. At a time when questions of animal-to-human disease transmission remain a matter of global concern, the research offers a timely opportunity to revisit the deeper historical origins of how societies understand, manage, and govern the relationship between human and animal health.