Genomics and the biology of parasites

Despite the advances of modern medicine, the threat of chronic illness, dis figurement, or death that can result from parasitic infection still affects the majority of the world population, retarding economic development. For most parasitic diseases, current therapeutics often leave much to be desire d in terms of administration regime, toxicity, or effectiveness and potenti al vaccines are a long way from market. Our best prospects for identifying new targets for drug, vaccine, and diagnostics development and for dissecti ng the biological basis of drug resistance, antigenic diversity, infectivit y and pathology lie in parasite genome analysis, and international mapping and gene discovery initiatives are under way for a variety of protozoan and helminth parasites. These are far from ideal experimental organisms, and t he influence of biological and genomic characteristics on experimental appr oaches is discussed, progress is reviewed and future prospects are examined . BioEssays 1999,21.131-147. (C) 1999 John Wiley a Sons, Inc.