Essential veterinary education in modern molecular tools for the detection of disease: what veterinarians will need to know about genomics and molecular biology and diagnostics

Future veterinary education programmes in microbiology will undoubtedly include an increasing emphasis on new and existing molecular tools. They should also, however, provide veterinarians with a comprehensive and clear understanding of the types of results that can be obtained using a particular approach (for example, specific diagnostic procedures as against open diagnostic procedures, phenotypic versus genotypic characterisation, etc.). Furthermore, students should gain a sound knowledge of which type of test is the most appropriate in a given clinical or epidemiological situation, and what conclusions can or cannot be drawn from the results. Consequently, each veterinary curriculum should focus on the following items: the principles of molecular biology and genomics; the detection of disease and characteristics of molecular tests; the principles of micro-organism taxonomy, sequence comparison and molecular epidemiology and their applications (such as: taxonomic identification, epidemiological survey, genetic evolution and the traceability of strains); and the role of the veterinarian in the field of zoonoses and human public health.