Infection, Genetics and Evolution is a journal that provides a great platform to publish molecular epidemiological research and to keep updated with recent developments.

From the journal webpage:

“Infectious diseases constitute one of the main challenges to medical science in the coming century. The impressive development of molecular megatechnologies and of bioinformatics have greatly increased our knowledge of the evolution, transmission and pathogenicity of infectious diseases. Research has shown that host susceptibility to many infectious diseases has a genetic basis. Furthermore, much is now known on the molecular epidemiology, evolution and virulence of pathogenic agents, as well as their resistance to drugs, vaccines, and antibiotics. Equally, research on the genetics of disease vectors has greatly improved our understanding of their systematics, has increased our capacity to identify target populations for control or intervention, and has provided detailed information on the mechanisms of insecticide resistance.

However, the genetics and evolutionary biology of hosts, pathogens and vectors have tended to develop as three separate fields of research. This artificial compartmentalisation is of concern due to our growing appreciation of the strong coevolutionary interactions among hosts, pathogens and vectors.

Infection, Genetics and Evolution and its companion congress MEEGID (for Molecular Epidemiology and Evolutionary Genetics of Infectious Diseases) are the main forum acting for the cross-fertilization between evolutionary science and biomedical research on infectious diseases.

Infection, Genetics and Evolution is the only journal that welcomes articles dealing with the genetics and evolutionary biology of hosts, pathogens and vectors, and coevolution processes among them in relation to infection and disease manifestation. All infectious models enter the scope of the journal, including pathogens of humans, animals and plants, either parasites, fungi, bacteria, viruses or prions. The journal welcomes articles dealing with genetics, population genetics, genomics, postgenomics, gene expression, evolutionary biology, population dynamics, mathematical modeling and bioinformatics.

The journal has an impact factor of 2.79. This compares to the impact factors of other journals as follows:  Preventive Veterinary Medicine (1.5), Epidemiology and Infection (2.3) and Applied and Environmental Microbiology (3.8).

The associated conference MEEGID X 2010 will be held from November 3rd – 5th 2010 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (http://www.meegidconference.com/index.asp)

Some recent articles of interest include:

• Mullner, P., Spencer, S.E.F., Wilson, D., Jones, G., Noble, A.D., Midwinter, A.C., Collins-Emerson, J., Carter, P., Hathaway, S. and French, N.P. (2009) Assigning the source of human campylobacteriosis in New Zealand: A comparative genetic and epidemiological approach. Infection, Genetics and Evolution 9, 1311-1319
• Petersen, A., Christensen, H., Kodjo, A., Weiser, G.C. and Bisgaard, M. (2009) Development of a multilocus sequence typing (MLST) scheme for Mannheimia haemolytica and assessment of the population structure of isolates obtained from cattle and sheep. Infection Genetics and Evolution 9, 626-632.
• Foley, S.L., Lynne, A.M. and Nayak, R. (2009) Molecular typing methodologies for microbial source tracking and epidemiological investigations of Gram-negative bacterial foodborne pathogens. Infection, Genetics and Evolution 9, 430-440.