Năm năm qua đã chứng kiến sự phát triển bất thường của trình tự gen của vi sinh vật. Thật vậy, ngày trước đó đã được gọi là 'pregenomic'. Tại thời điểm viết bài, khoảng 30 vi khuẩn khác nhau đã được hoàn toàn trình tự, bao gồm cả bệnh lao M., T pallidum và H. pylori, và nhiều hơn nữa dự kiến trong những năm tới. | MIMS PATHohENESIS INFECTIOUS JDlSEASiE 91 r R a V 1TJ a R y Z X - _w J CIỀỂI MMaMM Y y Preface to the Fifth Edition The past five years have seen the extraordinary development of gene sequencing of microorganisms. Indeed earlier days have been referred to as pregenomic . At the time of writing about 30 different microbes have been completely sequenced including M. tuberculosis T. pallidum and H. pylori and many more are expected in the coming years. In principle this gives us the ability to probe the inner depths of microbial pathogenicity but it is not easy and so far the big spinoff for our understanding of pathogenesis is promised rather than delivered. We have to identify the key genes and then find out how the gene products operate. It has been said that the gene sequence of a microbe is like the Rosetta stone impressive to see but to have value it must be translated. It will be an immense help if we can become better at predicting protein function from sequence. Infectious diseases are thriving. In the case of smallpox and soon polio the disease can be eliminated from the earth before details of its pathogenesis have been unravelled. Nevertheless we need to keep studying pathogenesis because understanding it lends a helping hand to therapy control of transmission vaccine development and to the science of immunology. It is no accident that the recent Nobel laureates Peter Doherty and Rolf Zinkemagel made their discovery of the MHC restriction of cytotoxic T-cells in the course of studies on the pathogenesis of a virus infection of mice. The book has been updated while retaining the structure of earlier editions. Pathogenetic principles remain much the same but we now see the details slowly filled in. c. A. Mims V Preface to the Fourth Edition Further advances in immunology and in the molecular analysis of pathogenesis make this new edition overdue. Microbial toxins in particular are well-represented. This time the original author has had the good fortune to be
