Molecular diagnosis of inherited diseases

The importance of the interaction between basic science and clinical practi ce has long been known but it has become even more evident in the past few decades with the impressive rate of development in the field of molecular g enetics. This short article reviews molecular diagnosis of two different di seases for which scientific progress has immediately been translated into a dramatic improvement of the quality of medical care: the Fragile X Syndrom e, paradigm of the new mutational mechanism of the unstable triplet repeats , and von Hippel-Lindau disease, a recent acquisition in the growing number of familial cancer syndromes. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights re served.