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The use of molecular techniques has increased greatly over the past decade in developed countries and it is expected that developing Member States would also like to benefit from their availability, commercialization and application particularly to address their burgeoning health problems. The main communicable diseases targeted by the IAEA Programme have been malaria, tuberculosis, Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, viral hepatitis and dengue.
Molecular biological techniques utilized in existing IAEA projects include: the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and hybridization with 32P radiolabelled oligonucleotide probes for diagnosis; and techniques such as dot-blot assays, restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), single strand conformational polymorphism (SSCP) and manual sequencing using 35S, for typing and monitoring of strain variation and detecting mutations leading to drug resistance. Quality control issues for these tests have also been addressed.
Isotopic techniques can provide sensitive and specific solutions for diagnosis, epidemiology and many other aspects of communicable disease surveillance. Isotopic molecular techniques are time-tested, robust, cost-effective and suitable for establishing molecular biology facilities in naïve settings. Once a laboratory is experienced in using radioisotopic molecular techniques, and is able to generate more financial resources for sustainability, it would find it quite easy to even adapt to non-isotopic alternatives.
