Biochip is a kind of minimized and integrated analyzer for molecular biology and biochemistry. Advances in biochip technology enable massive parallel mining of biological data, with biochips providing hybridizationbased expression monitoring, polymorphism detection and genotyping on a genomic scale. Microarrays may soon permit the expression analysis of the entire human genome in a single reaction. These ’genome chips’ will provide access to key areas of human health, including disease diagnosis, drug discovery, toxicology, etc. Microarray technology is rapidly becoming a central platform for functional genomics. Development of biochips is to immigrate the eatire analysis process of biochemical reactions and establish the micro total analytical system or lab-on-a-chip.
As a new technology, biochip has enjoyed its rapid development for its high-speed and parallel feature. Lab-on-a-chip, based on the biochip technology, integrates the non-continuous process of the life sciences into a microchip. Biochip technology is believed to revolutionize the future research in life sciences, disease diagnosis, forensic sciences and outer space exploitation. We focus on the applications of biochip in the medicine area, such as disease diagnosis, and study of disease mechanism.
Biochip emerges from combination of microfabrication technology and biology technology. It integrates many discontinuous processes of life sciences such as sample preparation, chemical reaction and detection into the microchip and makes it become continuous and subminiature. Lab-on-a-chip, biochemistry analysis system based on biochip technology, has the features of small size, low cost, high automation, high analysis speed, high-information, contamination-proof little sample and reagent consumption, etc. It will be applied in the areas of biology, medical science, life science etc. in the near future. In this paper, the applications of biochip in the field of basic life science research and its recent development are reviewed.
Since DNA microarray technology was developed several years ago, it has been implemented in many biological fields. Migroarrays for gene-expression analysis provide an integrated platform for functional genomics research. Based on the platform, pharmacology finds a high throughput screening method in drug discovery and development, especially in validating novel therapeutic target, assessing drug efficacy and eliciting potential toxicity.
