Molecular Diagnostic and Epidemiology of Viral Infections

Dear Colleagues,

The necessity for rapid detection and characterization of SARS-CoV-2 pushed molecular diagnostics and epidemiology right to the forefront of medical attention. Molecular diagnostic tools have steadily evolved over the last two decades, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically accelerated the pace of development within the field. Laboratory infrastructure and expertise in molecular diagnostics have expanded to unprecedented levels. Of note, at the beginning of April 2021, the GISAID database listed more than 993,000 SARS-CoV-2 full genome sequences. As a comparison, the number of HIV-1 (a major focus for several years) entries in the GenBank database was 960,000.

Has this expansion of molecular data modified the way we approach pathogen detection? Will our approach to other pathogens be influenced (and how) by these recent developments? PCR has already been a mainstay in approaching the patient with infectious pathology; will sequencing enter the standard clinical practice as well? Furthermore, can lessons learned from the COVID-19 experience be extrapolated to other pathologies? Are we better prepared for future challenges? We kindly invite you to share with us data that might shed light on these topics.

Dr. Dan Oţelea
Dr. Snjezana Zidovec Lepej
Guest Editors

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