Molecular genetics. Introduction.

While sharing the same techniques as the field at large, diagnostic molecular genetics is unique among the subdisciplines of molecular pathology in many of its aspects, from sample collection to ethical implications of the test results obtained. Yet, despite its many challenges, this branch of DNA diagnostics has already pervaded the practice of medical genetics to an extent unmatched in any other clinical specialty. Genetic disease also presents the most immediately obvious opportunities for extension from DNA-based diagnosis to DNA-based therapy.