Biotechnology and molecular diagnostics.

Molecular diagnostic applications of biotechnology have allowed the exploitation of biological processes for the industrial production of bio-products that are used for diagnostic purposes. Advances in genetic-related technologies together with a multidisciplinary interplay of several fields led to the development of genomics which is focusing at the detection of pathogenetic events at the genome level. Both structural and functional genomic approaches are shaping the technological challenge of the discovery of disease-related genes and the identification of their structural alterations or elucidation of gene function. Some of the emerging technologies and diagnostic applications of both structural and functional genomics will be summarised, including the issues related to identification of disease-genes, detection of genetic alterations, mutation scanning and DNA chip technology or those related to expression genetics (hybridisation-, PCR- and sequence-based technologies), two-hybrid technology and bioinformatics and computational biology, respectively. Further advances of genetic engineering have also revolutionised immunoassay biotechnology via engineering of antibody-encoding genes and the phage display technology. A comment will also be given about some of the issues related to the commercialisation and widespread diffusion of genetic information derived from the exploitation of the biotechnology industry and the development and marketing of diagnostic services.