Book excerpt: The first book on this young, highly dynamic, and expanding field. This comprehensive, interdisciplinary text focuses on those pathogenic bacteria that are of high scientific and public health interest, yet which also display great potential for the development of new diagnostic, prophylactic and therapeutic procedures. The authors cover all aspects of pathogenomics, including methods, genomics and applications. In addition, the ongoing development of genome, transcriptome, proteome and bioinformatic analyses of pathogenic microorganisms and their host interactions makes for a comprehensive introduction to the field of modern genomic analysis. This result is invaluable to researchers and students wishing to gain a general overview of microbial functional genome analysis and pathogenesis, while also representing a good starting point for those new to the area.