page_title: Molecular diagnostics
section_title: Techniques
hierarchical_section_title: Molecular diagnostics / Techniques
caption_attribution_description: A microarray that can be used to assay half a million or so variable positions in the human genome. Now completely outmoded by the 6.0 array, which does over 900,000, plus another 946,000 or so non-variable parts of the genome to boot. Also shown - the ugly pattern on the guest chairs in my office, somewhat blurred to reduce the strain on your eyes.
context_page_description: Molecular diagnostics is a collection of techniques used to analyse biological markers in the genome and proteome—the individual's genetic code and how their cells express their genes as proteins—by applying molecular biology to medical testing. The technique is used to diagnose and monitor disease, detect risk, and decide which therapies will work best for individual patients.
  By analysing the specifics of the patient and their disease, molecular diagnostics offers the prospect of personalised medicine.
  These tests are useful in a range of medical specialisms, including infectious disease, oncology, human leucocyte antigen typing, coagulation, and pharmacogenomics—the genetic prediction of which drugs will work best. They overlap with clinical chemistry.
caption: The Affymetrix 5.0, a microarray chip
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