One of the most important recent innovations in Clinical Microbiology is the introduction of molecular methods for the diagnosis of microbial infection. The use of real-time PCR assays in the clinical microbiology laboratory has led to significant improvements in the diagnosis of infectious disease. Real-time PCR is particularly useful for the detection of slow growing or difficult to grow
infectious agents and also for the quantitation of specific organisms in samples.
Andrew Sails has written a comprehensive review on the
clinical applications of Real-Time PCR in the clinical microbiology laboratory. A recently published book review described his chapter as follows: "The most comprehensive chapter is Chapter 13
Application in Clinical Microbiology, in which large numbers of microorganisms are mentioned that can be readily identified by RT-PCR." Read more of this book review at
Curr. Iss. Mol. Biol.Further reading:
Labels: book review, diagnosis, PCR, real-time PCR