Diagnostic Molecular Biology

Abstract

Clinical mycology is being increasingly challenged by two growing problems: (1) loss of experienced medical mycologists who can identify both common and rare fungi, and (2) a rapidly expanding group of clinically significant fungi that clinicians have rarely or never seen before that are appearing with increasing frequency. As increasingly fewer young, experienced, medical mycologists are entering clinical laboratories, the skills to identify current and future new species of fungi are rapidly disappearing. Unfortunately, patient populations are becoming increasingly immunosuppressed for longer periods of time, which is creating a perfect storm of a growing need for diagnostic skills being unmet by decreasing numbers of young mycologists entering the clinical profession. One of the ways around this issue is to develop new, robust, easy-to-use diagnostic strategies. The evidence is overwhelming that the field of molecular biology can be the source of these new strategies. There currently are multiple approaches that employ new equipment and new techniques that offer a way to fill the growing diagnostic vacuum that has been created in the past 10–20 years. These approaches need to make their way into clinical microbiology laboratories as quickly as possible in order to insure that the diagnostic needs for the field of medical mycology are met today and into the future.