On 29 March 2005 a 41 year old journalist died of sepsis six days after a minor surgical
procedure; she had consulted eight doctors over the intervening Easter bank holiday …

The introduction of in vitro nucleic acid amplification techniques, led by real-time PCR, into
the clinical microbiology laboratory has transformed the laboratory detection of viruses and …

Several species of mycoplasmas and ureaplasmas are now well-known human pathogens
responsible for a broad array of conditions involving the respiratory and urogenital tracts of …

Because of the absence of well-standardized both in-house and FDA-approved
commercially available diagnostic tests, the reliable diagnosis of respiratory infection due to …

The advent of the 21st century has seen significant advances in the methods and practices
used for identification of medically important molds in the clinical microbiology laboratory …

Modern laboratory techniques for the detection of novel human viruses are greatly needed
as physicians and epidemiologists increasingly deal with infectious diseases caused by new …

Background Identifying the bacteria and viruses present in a complex sample is useful in
disease diagnostics, product safety, environmental characterization, and research. Array …

Platforms for pathogen discovery have improved since the days of Koch and Pasteur;
nonetheless, the challenges of proving causation are at least as daunting as they were in …

Acute respiratory infections are significant causes of morbidity, mortality, and economic
burden worldwide. An accurate, early differential diagnosis may alter individual clinical …

Highlights•Improvements in high throughput sequencing are enabling new insights into viral
ecology, evolution and pathogenesis.•Finding genetic footprints of an agent is only the first …