Part I. BACKGROUND -- CHAPTER 1 Introduction - Brief History and the present and future status of CNAPS -- CHAPTER 2 The biology of CNAPS -- Part II. METHODOLOGY -- CHAPTER 3 Pre-analytical requirements for analysing nucleic acids from blood -- CHAPTER 4. Circulating DNA and miRNA isolation -- CHAPTER 5 Detection of genetic alterations by nucleic acid analysis: use of pcr and mass spectroscopy-based methods -- CHAPTER 6 Genomic approaches to the analysis of cell free nucleic acids -- Part III APPLICATIONS -- CHAPTER 7 CNAPS and General Medicine -- CHAPTER 8 Fetal CNAPS - DNA/RNA -- CHAPTER 9 Circulating nucleic acids and Diabetes mellitus -- CHAPTER 10 Extracellular nucleic acids and cancer -- CHAPTER 11 Other bodily fluids as non-invasive sources of Cell-free DNA/RNA -- CHAPTER 12 CNAPS in therapy monitoring -- Part IV OTHER ASPECTCS -- CHAPTER 13 Quality Assurance -- CHAPTER 14 Societal Aspects: Ethics.