The molecular diagnosis could help cure tropical diseases effectively. This method has been in place 20 years but has never been applied to tropical diseases. The book 'Diagnosis of neglected diseases: molecules and tropic' deals with it.
13 january 2016
¿What is molecular diagnosis?
Molecular diagnosis is a general term that comprehends a group of techniques of molecular biology used for the identification of the underlying molecular defects in a hereditary disease or for the detection of infectious diseases, whether they are viral, bacterial or fungal. Like any other medical diagnosis process, it intends to determine the cause of a disease which could be genetic or infectious. However, differently from a conventional clinical diagnosis, molecular diagnosis goes beyond anamnesis and the physical study of the patients, analysing their ADN too.
‘Diagnosis of neglected diseases: molecules and tropic’
On 2015, the book “Diagnóstico de las Enfermedades Desatendidas: moléculas y trópico" (Diagnosis of neglected diseases: molecules and tropic) was published. It was coordinated by members of the Centro Nacional de Microbiología del Instituto de Salud Carlos III.
Well-known Spanish experts in Tropical Medicine review in the book the progress in the field of molecular diagnosis and how its application improves the knowledge of this kind of diseases.
The application of molecular diagnosis methods was born 20 years ago and went from being something extraordinarily new, to a daily tool used for many diseases. But this field has not reached tropical illnesses, which does not receive this kind of scientific progresses, vaccines, diagnosis, treatments and other new diagnosis methods. This book intends to introduce diagnosis molecular methods in tropical diseases.
“Diagnóstico de las Enfermedades Desatendidas: moléculas y trópico” (Diagnosis of neglected diseases: molecules and tropic) was coordinated by experts of the Centro Nacional de Microbiología del Instituto de Salud Carlos III (CNM-ISCIII), Esperanza Rodríguez and José Miguel Rubio, and by the member of the organisation Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), Jorge Alvar. Furthermore, a big team of expert researchers of the Red de Investigación Colaborativa en Enfermedades Tropicales (RICET), launched by the ISCIII, has also participated.
The book is part of the Medicina Tropical- Salud Global collection, directed by one of the coordinators: Jorge Alvar and edited by Grupo Sial Pigmalion. The volume, by the researchers who participate in the Molecular Diagnosis of tropical diseases course, organised by the Escuela Nacional de Sanidad (National School of Public Health), focuses in these pathologies, which are becoming less exotic, in order to review the progresses in the molecular diagnosis of tropical diseases and how its application improves the knowledge on these diseases.
