THE FUTURE AND PROSPECTS OF BIO-CHIPS

Abstract

Nanotechnology deals with manipulation of matter at atomic and molecular level. A general description for nanotechnology is provided by National Nanotechnology Initiative, that defines nanotechnology as the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension is  around 1-100 nanometer. The major application of modern nanotechnology in future would be creation of biological chips which include organ-on-chip, human-on-chip, and lab-on-chip. The world needs easy, readily accessible health care for which one of the solutions would be lab-on-chip. A lab-on-chip is a device that consists of several laboratory functions on single chip of only few millimeters to centimeter in size. Apart from health care a major problem to be addressed is the drug development for out raging diseases where many drugs fail on human trial, for such problems the boon given by nanotechnology is the organ-on-chip and human-on-chip. These chips are multichannel 3D micro fluidic cell culture chips which mimics the organs environment and its interaction within the cells. This would help us to understand the human physiology with respect to each organ thus avoiding the testing of new drugs on animals and the drugs toxicity tests on them. Although the concept is still in infancy stage many initiative are taken to improve this technology as this could replace the already existing traditional technology that is time and cost consuming.