UNAM
Revista Digital Universitaria
Revista Digital Universitaria ISSN: 1607 - 6079 | Publicación mensual | 1 de junio de 2014 vol.15, No.06

ABSTRACT

Infectious Diseases, towards a personalized medicine



Xavier Soberón Mainero y Vanessa González Covarrubias


The fight against infectious diseases has been a constant during the millennia of human evolution, and even though the advent of antibiotics and hygienic practices teased us into vanquishing this battle, the emergence of aggressive and drug-resistant pathogens has propelled the development and implementation of new preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic initiatives for the control of infectious microorganisms. Today, various diseases continue to afflict humans including influenza, AIDS, hepatitis-C, several diarrheas, nosocomial infections, and tuberculosis among several others. In this regard, genomic medicine with its arsenal of molecular tools promises to assist in the control of infectious diseases by establishing a transition towards a personalized medicine. Focusing on individualized care will require a case-by-case analysis based on the genetic characteristics of the patient and those of the infectious agent. Information from these genomic technologies ought to be translated into the clinic to provide a timely diagnosis and appropriate drug therapy, thus controlling and preventing the infection from spreading. In this article we use the case of global emergency, drug resistant tuberculosis, to illustrate the power of genomic medicine as it shortens the gap towards a personalized treatment.



Keywords: Infectious diseases, genomic medicine, tuberculosis.