Biomarkers and Pathogenesis of Infectious Diseases: From Research to Personalized Medicine

Dear Colleagues,

Infectious diseases represent one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. Advances in medical science have resulted in improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of patients that would have been considered incurable in the past.

Currently, a cause of great concern is the emergence of multidrug-resistant bacteria. Early detection and effective therapy are the main goals to consider when an infected patient is being treated.

The use of biomarkers for diagnosis and monitoring has potential, as they are promising clinical tools. In addition to distinguishing the infective from the noninfective, some biomarkers are used for determining the effectiveness of an intervention during the evolution of the infectious process or host response. New biomarkers related to infectious diseases have been tested, but few of them are used in clinical practice. Procalcitonin, IL-6, and C-reactive protein are widely used, but the search for even better biomarkers or combinations of them, i.e., those with acceptable specificity and sensitivity, is ongoing. Maybe bioinformatics or machine learning may develop prediction models for early detection and prognosis in terms of personalized medicine.

In view of the complexity of the infectious response, it is unlikely that a single ideal biomarker will ever be found. Better strategies are necessary to prevent overwhelming infections. Educating and training healthcare workers are effective strategies to combat the dissemination and transmission of infectious agents.

This Special Issue aims to collate evidence about the physiopathology of infections, including advances in the detection and use of potential alternative personalized diagnostic strategies. Infectious diseases are a persistent challenge for clinicians and researchers. We hope that this Special Issue will stimulate work on improving the methodologies for the detection and treatment of infections through providing comprehensive discussions so that we can achieve early diagnoses and thus reduce complications.

Dr. César Henríquez-Camacho
Guest Editor

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• biomarkers
• infectious diseases
• pathogenesis
• personalized medicine