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Investigators have found a strain of the plague bacteria Yersinia pestis in the body of Malcolm Casadaban, a University of Chicago geneticist who died last week within 12 hours of his arrival at Bernard Mitchell Hospital with “intense flulike symptoms.” The autopsy did not identify a cause of death, according to the Chicago Tribune.

No other cases have been reported in Chicago, and none of the other researchers exposed to the strain, used as a vaccine since the 1960s, has fallen ill, but officials gave antibiotics to Casadaban’s family, friends, and co-workers. Ken Alexander, head of pediatric infectious disease said that the autopsy did not imply that the strain of the plague was a public health threat. He told the Chicago Tribune that “the more likely possibility, I’d say 999 to 1, is that there was something unusual about him.”

Photo: Courtesy University of Chicago