Genomics, Proteomics, and Clinical Bacteriology: Methods and Reviews

It is essential that all clinical bacteriologists become active participants in the current genomics and proteomics revolution if the significant achievements of genome sequencing and analysis are to produce real benefits for patient care. In Genomics, Proteomics, and Clinical Bacteriology, a panel of internationally renowned experts reviews how genomics has provided novel methods for bacterial investigation and advanced our knowledge of bacterial pathogenicity. The authors critically evaluate the applications of genomics to diagnostic bacteriology, highlighting both current and likely future uses, describing real-time PCR methods, and outlining the promise of microarrays in clinical bacteriology. Their discussion examines in detail genomic approaches to antibacterial discovery, the nature of pathogenicity, the discovery of new pathogens, the exploration of the concept of clonality in bacteria, and bacterial taxonomics. Introductory material explains for the uninitiated the relevance of genomics to the clinical laboratory, illustrating the art and science of working with public databases, digging for data, and exploiting bacterial proteomes. Comprehensive and insightful, Genomics, Proteomics, and Clinical Bacteriology offers everyone working in medical bacteriology an accessible introduction to a rapidly evolving discipline, one that shows not only how knowledge of bacterial genome sequences affects diagnostic bacteriology today, but also how that knowledge may be used in the future to gain new insights into bacterial disease processes, identify critical targets for antiinfectives, and aid in designing novel antibiotics.