OBSERVATION Outbreak situations require in vitro diagnostics (IVDs) to identify those who are infected and to track the infectious agent in the population. However, such IVDs are typically not available and must be developed. In addition, the process of IVD development, assessment, and implementation are very time and resource intensive. Recognising the extraordinary public health need for IVDs...

Understanding the molecular mechanisms of disease requires the introduction of molecular diagnostics into medical practice. Current medicine employs only elements of molecular diagnostics, and usually on the scale of single genes. Medicine in the post-genomic era will utilize thousands of molecular markers associated with disease that are provided by high-throughput sequencing and functional ge...

Tuberculosis remains one of the most serious infectious diseases worldwide requiring new tools to circumvent current molecular diagnostics limitations. Nanodiagnostics, i.e. nanotechnology based diagnostics, may do just that by decreasing the time needed for the molecular characterisation of the infecting agent, and allowing for miniaturisation and portability for point-of-need adapted to remot...