Completion requirements
Students are required to carry out a small-scale methodological project with a topic related to a pathogen. The aim is to consult on line sources based on genetic information to introduce an improvement or innovation in laboratory practice. We include some examples of results of the "Antibiotics and Molecular Bacteriology Group" ( Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain) presented at Intenational Congress that can be used as models.
Steps that must be taken to achieve the improvement/innovation:
- Choose a microorganism
- Find out the corresponding genetic characteristics: chromosome size, GC content, movile genetic elements (plasmids, integrons, trasposons).
- Decide the target genes for identification and diagnosis
- Plan a series of molecular techniques and analyse the advantages and disadvantages compared with conventional methodology.
For this objective we recommend the following "most useful web sites":
- National Center for Biotechnology Information
- Bacterial Comparative Genomics
- European Network of Laboratories for Sequence Based Typing of Microbial Pathogens
- European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases