Prince, a three-year-old boy, is brought to the emergency room in Monrovia, Liberia, with fever and a decreased level of consciousness. He is critically ill. He is treated for malaria.
Molecular diagnostics now provides most laboratory tests in infectious disease and genetics, and an increasing number in oncology. Massively parallel methods allow sequencing of entire genomes, and sequence databases within and between species provide the information necessary to develop sensitive and specific diagnostic assays. Indeed, most microorganisms today are classified on the basis of sequence rather than phenotype.