Genetic Susceptibility to Infectious Diseases

Infectious diseases are commonly regarded as a distinct category, withdifferent causes and patterns than chronic or genetic disease. But in fact thereare many varieties of genetic susceptibility to infection, the subject of thisbook, which will be divided into three sections: 1) concepts and methods, 2)genes and pathophysiologic mechanisms, and 3) infectious agents and diseases. Nocurrently plubished text on either genetics or infectious diseases focuses onthe genetic aspects of the special relationship between host and pathogen in theway envisioned for Section 1. No other work on the selected genes regulatingimmunity deals as systematically with the sequence variation/functionrelationships most pertinent to infection as planned for Section 2. And no otherbook gives as meaningful a picture of how these genes operate in infectiousdisease as Section 3 will.