Genomic Tools in Clinical Epidemiology

ABSTRACT

The advent of high-throughput technologies, including next-generation sequencing (NGSs), is currently revolutionizing our understanding of several aspects in biological and medical sciences. Particularly, genomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic, and interactomic studies are having a profound impact on the progress of clinical epidemiology. This science is improving public health practices by linking the knowledge from the etiology, distribution, and risk factors during the appearance and progress of infectious and chronic diseases. In this sense, genomic tools have been incorporated in epidemiological studies for the identification of rare genetic variants, genetic and environmental risk factors, and accurate biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of several diseases. In this chapter, we aim to highlight the influence that genomics is having on different epidemiological traits by illustrating some examples about the control of the COVID-19 pandemic and the diagnoses, screening, and treatment of chronic diseases such as the infection caused by Helicobacter pylori, cancer, and rheumatoid arthritis. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.