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An assistant scientist inside Surromed’s labs in Menlo Park, CA, on March 03,2004, works on an automated electroplating system used to produce nanobarcodes. Different metals are plated onto alumina membranes to create a sequence of metal “stripes”.
SurroMed is a California-based company that focuses on discovering and applying biomarkers to improve the drug discovery and development process and enable the precise diagnosis and personalized treatment of disease.
Biochip technology, a combination of semiconductor technology with molecular biology, has become a multi-billion dollar industry over the past few years. A biochip is a collection of miniaturized test sites (microarrays) arranged on a solid substrate that can perform thousands of biological reactions, such as decoding genes, in a few seconds. It uses tiny strands of DNA to latch onto and quickly recognize thousands of genes at a time. Biochips helped to dramatically accelerate the identification of the estimated 80,000 genes in human DNA, an ongoing world-wide research collaboration known as the "Human Genome Project". In addition to genetic applications, the biochip is being used in toxicological, protein, and biochemical research as well as to rapidly detect chemical agents used in biological warfare so that defensive measures can be taken.
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