The next chapter of human–plague science

In PNAS, Jones et al. (1) provide an expert history of human–plague interactions across central Asia, and we support their thesis that zoonotic systems are best regulated using “control” rather than “eradication” strategies. Nonetheless, a control strategy is incomplete if it fails to acknowledge the critical role that modern biospecimen infrastructure plays in revealing historic and ongoing oscillations of host–pathogen systems. Recent environmental changes unique to central Asia (2), coupled with intensification of cultural and economic exchange in the region (i.e., China’s Belt and Road Initiative; ref. 3) demand approaches to pathogen control that are informed by the historic and modern material contained in biorepositories.