Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and characteristics of disease, and the application of this study to the control of diseases and other health problems.
It is important to study disease in this way so that cures and research investment, public awareness and disease prevention can be targeted to control diseases. For example, it is because of epidemiology that we know the the flu season is at its peak in our part of the world from December to March.
Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the structure and function of the macromolecules (e.g. proteins and nucleic acids) essential to life. It is like taking a look inside the cell to find what makes it tick. For example; understanding the molecular biology of cancer can lead to the identification of new treatment options.
If you know your enemy, you will defeat it! Epidemiology allows us to get to know a disease and the patterns of infection across a country, or the world. Molecular epidemiology does this by looking at the DNA of an organism that causes the disease (for instance, TB). We look at every single case of TB in Ireland in my lab. Whenever the DNA of two cases looks the same, this could be the start of an outbreak, so we tell Public Health ASAP and they go out and interview the two people and find out who they have been in contact with, and treat those people for TB before they develop it, stopping the spread of the outbreak. So it does effect our everyday lives, we just don’t see it all the time.
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