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Lab-On-A-Chip for DNA-Related Work
Tekmage writes "HP has announced the release of it's HP2100 bioanalyzer. It makes use of a little chip by Caliper Technologies. Yet another tool for the genetic engineers among us; Caliper describe various aspects of the tech here. "
As a molecular geneticist who's actually used some of these types of devices (like Affymetrix's GeneChip analyzer...with an amazing HP laser scanner www.affymetrix.com), they are nothing short of amazing. The engineering problems are not so much the mechanical (designing silicon surfaces, circuits, etc.) but biological (i.e. the proteins, DNA, cell gunk get in the way, clog those micro-channels or the flouresent tags used in detection have to be so far apart to avoid misreads). Also, you need a REALLY high confidence level for the data they generate. Still, they are a marvel in the way that diagnostics will be able to utilize the load of information from all the genome sequencing projects. These devices are also planned for use as "biosensors" to be used as fast screening methods for biological terrorism (right now any idiot on earth can clog up tons of local, state and federal agencies by sending a fake anthrax warning out). And a tidy sum of money is being made available to make devices like this available (for example, today's announcement by the CDC to give another $40 million in grants for anti-bioterrorism efforts--http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19990915/ hl/bio10_1.html). Cheers, JD