Future trends and challenges in pathogenomics

Abstract

The difficult thing about the future is that it is so hard to predict. After the Second World War, the availability of vaccines and antibiotics and the successes of improved hygiene and public health policies led to such a dramatic fall in mortality that in 1969 the US Surgeon General claimed that “we can close the book on infectious diseases.” In hindsight, his prediction of the future was utterly wrong—infectious diseases are back with a vengeance. Nearly 25% of the annual deaths worldwide are directly related to pathogens (Morens et al , 2004); multidrug‐resistant tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS are on the rise worldwide; and Staphylococcus and Enterococcus strains in Western hospitals are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. In addition, the rapid spread of new pathogens, such as the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and West Nile viruses, has shown the frailty of global public health, which is further affected by tourism and trade. Experts in security and public health also worry that publicly available scientific information and advanced genetic technologies could be misused to create weapons for bioterrorism. To overcome these threats to human health, research on pathogenic microbes and the development of new diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutic strategies remains an important task at the beginning of the twenty‐first century. It is in this context that we conducted our Foresight study, ‘Future Trends and Challenges in Pathogenomics’, as part of the EU‐funded ERA‐NET project PathoGenoMics, to provide an overview of current and future trends and challenges in the field of genomic research on pathogenic microorganisms. Clearly, a Foresight study is not a crystal ball to peek into the future, but it does allow the identification of important trends in science, as well as perceived gaps in research, and places them in the context of future challenges for public health. > …trends and developments …