Definition of "serology" []

• The science that deals with the properties and reactions of serums, especially blood serum. (noun)
• The characteristics of a disease or organism shown by study of blood serums: the serology of acquired immune deficiency syndrome; the serology of mammals. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Dengue diagnosis depends on serology, which is not useful in the early phase of the disease and virus isolation, which is laborious and time consuming."
• "The review started in October 2007, days after DNA evidence cleared Ronald Taylor of sexual assault in a case where HPD analysts performed faulty tests on body-fluid evidence, known as serology, a precursor to DNA testing."
• "If we consider that the replication of the virus requires the accurate synthesis of an enormously complicated molecule which is unknown to the host, though not as to general type, yet in all the details of its pattern and therefore of the synthetic steps involved, and if we consider further what extraordinary production an organism puts on to perform in an orderly way the most minute oxidation or synthesis in all those cases that do not involve the copying of a particular pattern - setting aside serology, which is a thing by itself - then it seems impossible to assume that the enzyme-system for the host could be modified in such a far-reaching way by the injection of a virus."