Molecular Diagnostics for Infectious Disease

Advances in the field of molecular biology are providing the clinical laboratory with new and innovative techniques, allowing us to isolate and analyze nucleic acids much more rapidly and accurately than ever before. These methodologies have greatly augmented the laboratorian’s capability to detect nonculturable or slow-growing microorganisms, identify unusual organisms, and detect antimicrobial resistance. We can now easily monitor a variety of disease processes by quantitation of nucleic acid sequences, as well as evaluate the relatedness of organisms involved in epidemic and nosocomial infections. Many of these molecular techniques are routinely offered by clinical laboratories and are performed either in-house or through a referral laboratory. These molecular techniques are briefly described and their application in the clinical laboratory is discussed.