Molecular diagnostics clinical applications

There is a vast array of techniques that are currently being used to look for mutations for clinical molecular diagnostic use. The following overview of methods describes some of the most common techniques to detect recurrent mutations used in many diagnostic laboratories. As detection of unique mutations is not of relevance to pharmacogenetic applications, this topic will not be discussed in this chapter. 

Among the several drug delivery systems, liposomes - phospholipid nanosized vesicles with a bilayered membrane structure - have drawn a lot of interest as advanced and versatile pharmaceutical carriers for both low and high molecular weight pharmaceuticals. At present, liposomal formulations span multiple areas, from clinical application of the liposomal drugs to the development of various multifunctional liposomal systems to be used in therapy and diagnostics. This chapter provides a brief overview of various liposomal products currently under development at experimental and preclinical level. 

Fluorescence spectroscopy is rapidly changing to include analytical and clinical applications. There is also a rapid expansion of the use of fluorescence in DNA analysis and molecular diagnostics. These books describe the design principles of sensing probes, NIR probes, and lifetime-based settsing. 

More and better QD probes have been designed and constructed during the past several years, and they are getting closer and closer to clinical applications in the near future. The impact of QDs on immunoassay, diagnostics, and molecular pathology can already be seen. We believe that more robust and reproducible conjugation methods for QD probe production are key for their commercialization and widespread use. Additionally, the discovery of non-tra-ditional QDs will pave the way for the in vivo clinical use of these nanomaterials. 

Optical sensors for oxygen are among the few sensors, which have found practical application for process-monitoring and clinical diagnostics. They are generally based on compounds such as platinum porphyrins or ruthenium phenanthroline derivatives (Table 17) which show a decrease in luminescence upon exposure to molecular oxygen15. 

The voluminous number of publications in this area over the last 10 years have exceeded 10,000, thus attesting to the intensity of effort directed towards applying molecular methods towards investigation of infectious diseases. Many of these investigations have translated into applications for diagnostic use in the clinical laboratory. The reader is referred to selected reviews on the subject (F2, N3, Wl). The availability of assays for the rapid diagnosis of pulmonary tuber-... 

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