GENOMIC FINGERPRINT: USE OF A SOFTWARE WITH A GENOMIC LIBRARY TO DIAGNOSE THE CAUSE OF INTOXICATION IN PRACTICAL CLASSES

J. Del Pino, P. Moyano-Cires, J. Garcia, M.J. Diaz, M. Lobo, M.A. Capo, M.T. Frejo

Complutense University of Madrid (SPAIN)
The establishment of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is trying to change the modalities of learning from lecture to other alternatives that are based on new Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). The use of ICT in education can easily develop key aspects of the EHEA, such as transparency and quality in learning, global assessment of student work and finally and perhaps most important, student autonomy.
In clinical toxicology, the differential diagnostic is critical because of the existence of many pathological processes that present similar signs and symptoms to different intoxication and also to different poisonings hence powerful tools that help the clinician to differentiate them are needed. It is estimated that in 15% of cases, the clinical diagnostics are performed incorrectly. To improve the way of diagnostic, we have developed a program for the toxicological diagnostic in order to improve teaching practice of students in addition to serving as support in subsequent clinical practice to avoid the incorrect diagnostic.
The software has a comprehensive database that includes a library of gene expression for more relevant toxic substances. The toxic substances produce for each species and tissue a repression/ induction of different genes and this patron of expression is unique and configures a fingerprint of the toxic substance. With this idea we built a software that let us measure in the species the gene expression induced by the toxic and compare it with the library of the software and elucidate the toxic compound. Consequently, no matter that the clinic does not know a particular diagnosis, as the software will announce the possibility poisoning not considered.
The aim of this project is to provide tools for the differential diagnosis in Toxicology.

At the end of the program the student is able to:
- Understand the mechanism of analytic differential diagnostic
- Use the methodology to differentiate the genomic expression from different intoxications.
- Improve the abilities to rule out serious intoxication presenting signs and symptoms occurring cases
- Improve the skills of selecting the most relevant complementary test for clinical decision in the intoxications analyzed, with cost-effectiveness criteria.

When making a diagnosis, the use of software may be useful to increase the accuracy and efficiency and help the physician to avoid cognitive errors.
keywords: genomic fingerprints, genomic library, diagnostic software.