Over the past several years the development and application of molecular diagnostic techniques has initiated a revolution in the diagnosis and monitoring of infectious diseases microbial phenotypic characteristics such as protein bacteriophage and chromatographic profiles as well as biotyping and susceptibility testing are used in most routine laboratories for identification and differentiation nucleic acid techniques such as plasmid profiling various methods for generating . Summary the implications of current trends in molecular infectious diseases are moving towards high throughput simple array type technologies that will provide a wealth of data regarding types of organisms present in a sample and the virulence factors resistance determinants that influence the severity of disease as a result of these developments infectious diseases will be more accurately and effectively treated. In the 3rd edition of kesslers molecular diagnostics of infectious diseases laboratory professionalists get valueable information about the current diagnostic methods tipps and tricks in terms of sample processing quality control and interpretation of the results for clinicians the book is a valuable aid for decision making in ordering appropriate tests as well as in assuring the necessary quality of the sample material. Malin nygren 2000 molecular diagnostics of infectious diseases department of biotechnology royal institute of technology kth stockholm sweden isbn 91 7170 504 x abstract in dna based diagnostics the polymerase chain reaction pcr is the most widely used dna amplification method to enable both sensitive and specific detection of agents causing infectious diseases the pcr needs to