This book will serve as a primer for both laboratory and field scientists who are shaping the emerging field of molecular epidemiology. Molecular epidemiology utilizes the same paradigm as traditional epidemiology but uses biological markers to identify exposure, disease or susceptibility. Schulte and Perera present the epidemiologic methods pertinent to biological markers. The book is also designed to enumerate the considerations necessary for valid field research and provide a resource on the salient and subtle features of biological indicators.

This groundbreaking work, now available in paperback, has helped to shape the emerging discipline of molecular epidemiology. Molecular Epidemiology has proven useful to epidemiologists unfamiliar with the terminology and techniques of molecular biology as well as to the molecular biologist working to understand the determinants of human disease and to use that information to control disease. This book demonstrates how molecular epidemiology utilizes the same paradigm as traditional epidemiology in addition to using biological markers to identify exposure, disease, or susceptibility.

Molecular Tools and Infectious Disease Epidemiology examines the opportunities and methodologic challenges in the application of modern molecular genetic and biologic techniques to infectious disease epidemiology. The application of these techniques dramatically improves the measurement of disease and putative risk factors, increasing our ability to detect and track outbreaks, identify risk factors and detect new infectious agents. However, integration of these techniques into epidemiologic studies also poses new challenges in the design, conduct, and analysis. This book presents the key points of consideration when integrating molecular biology and epidemiology; discusses how using molecular tools in epidemiologic research affects program design and conduct; considers the ethical concerns that arise in molecular epidemiologic studies; and provides a context for understanding and interpreting scientific literature as a foundation for subsequent practical experience in the laboratory and in the field. The book is recommended for graduate and advanced undergraduate students studying infectious disease epidemiology and molecular epidemiology; and for the epidemiologist wishing to integrate molecular techniques into his or her studies. - Presents the key points of consideration when integrating molecular biology and epidemiology - Discusses how using molecular tools in epidemiologic research affects program design and conduct - Considers the ethical concerns that arise in molecular epidemiologic studies - Provides a context for understanding and interpreting scientific literature as a foundation for subsequent practical experience in the laboratory and in the field

During the last two decades, molecular epidemiology has become an important discipline in cancer research. It has evolved towards the development, validation and application of markers of susceptibility and, more recently, markers of mechanisms of cancer development. This volume on mechanisms of carcinogenesis covers from an interdisciplinary perspective, the contribution of molecular epidemiology to the understanding of mechanisms of carcinogenesis, and represents a further contribution to the development of molecular epidemiology as a major cancer research domain.

Recently, rapid developments have occurred in the field of viral gastroenteritis. This book is an update of fundamental and practical aspects of viral gastroenteritis. Among the various agents that cause viral gastroenteritis, group A rotaviruses and caliciviruses are the focus of this volume because of their clinical impact and the significance of new findings about them.

This volume describes high-throughput approaches to a series of robust, established methodologies in molecular genetic studies of population samples. Such developments have been essential not only to linkage and association studies of single-gene and complex traits in humans, animals and plants, but also to the characterisation of clone banks, for example in mapping of genomes. Chapters have been written by developers or highly experienced end-users concerned with a diverse array of biological applications. The book should appeal to any researcher for whom costs and throughput in their genetics laboratory have become an issue.

The 'molecular' aspect of molecular epidemiology refers to the application of molecular biological approaches to epidemiologic problems. The variety and power of molecular methods are rapidly expanding our capability to dissect etiologic mechanisms of disease. The 'epidemiologic' aspect, meanwhile, refers to utilizing the tools and perspectives of epidemiology to comprehend observations in molecular biology. An increasingly sophisticated variety of molecular techniques are being applied to generate an explosion of data on exposures and outcomes whose significance must be determined. The wealth of information generated by the Human Genome Project and the corresponding efforts in microbial genomics are providing researchers with extraordinary new opportunities to further understand the etiology of disease. Molecular epidemiology is rapidly evolving through the application of more relevant markers of exposure and better identification of subgroups at increased risk of early disease processes and progression. This volume provides a broad overview of the diverse approaches encompassed by this emerging discipline. Chapters 1-3 highlight concepts and methods at the forefront of studies of infectious diseases, and include a synopsis of general epidemiologic design and analysis, as well as current techniques for molecular typing of microbial pathogens. Chapters 4-6 are focussed on recent advances in studying host genetics, including methods for the detection of mutations and polymorphisms, identification of linkage among alleles of genes on a given chromosome, and the use of DNA pooling to increase efficiency in association studies of genetically complex traits. Chapters 7 and 8 deal with the relationship between pathologies and immune system genetics, and on the use of DNA sequence information to garner insights into the evolution of infectious pathogens, and into the evolution and function of the immune system.

A Statistical Approach to Genetic Epidemiology After studying statistics and mathematics at the University of Munich and obtaining his doctoral degree from the University of Dortmund, Andreas Ziegler received the Johann-Peter-Süssmilch-Medal of the German Association for Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology for his post-doctoral work on “Model Free Linkage Analysis of Quantitative Traits” in 1999. In 2004, he was one of the recipients of the Fritz-Linder-Forum-Award from the German Association for Surgery.

This book brings together leading experts to provide an introduction to genetic epidemiology that begins with a primer in human molecular genetics through all the standard methods in population genetics and genetic epidemiology required for an adequate grounding in the field.

This well-organized and clearly written text has a unique focus on methods of identifying the joint effects of genes and environment on disease patterns. It follows the natural sequence of research, taking readers through the study designs and statistical analysis techniques for determining whether a trait runs in families, testing hypotheses about whether a familial tendency is due to genetic or environmental factors or both, estimating the parameters of a genetic model, localizing and ultimately isolating the responsible genes, and finally characterizing their effects in the population. Examples from the literature on the genetic epidemiology of breast and colorectal cancer, among other diseases, illustrate this process. Although the book is oriented primarily towards graduate students in epidemiology, biostatistics and human genetics, it will also serve as a comprehensive reference work for researchers. Introductory chapters on molecular biology, Mendelian genetics, epidemiology, statistics, and population genetics will help make the book accessible to those coming from one of these fields without a background in the others. It strikes a good balance between epidemiologic study designs and statistical methods of data analysis.