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Lab on a chip - Plug n play DNA - Microreactor

  • 20-12-2003 1:59am
    #1
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 93,583 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    http://www.sciencebase.com/dec99_iss.html
    One of the main aims of the LOC consortium in developing analytical and synthetic lab-on-a-chip devices is to ensure the kits are compatible so that devices can be integrated like 'plug-and-play' computer components.

    Many chemists hope that the lab-on-a-chip will do for chemistry what the silicon chip integrated circuit did for electronics. While there is a lot of hype surrounding the technology, laboratory equipment will shrink and become much cheaper and better. We will in the next few years begin to see consumer devices too, for chemical analysis, which will become commonplace in the home, at the doctors' surgery and in the workplace where tests can be carried out quickly and easily for all kinds of compounds of dietary, medical and environmental importance.


Comments

  • #2
    DriftingRain
    Closed Accounts Posts: 965 ✭✭✭DriftingRain


    With the ‘lab-on-a-chip’, as it has been tagged, they would be able to get a result there and then without having to waste time by sending samples back to the 'lab'.

    HEY.....I want me job there buddy.:D

    I wanna see this chip to look at a tissue or blood smear and be human enough to talk to the doc on the phone about a sample....Is it going to be sticking the patients too....Or are we minions to do that also.

    I am allll for technology except when it puts people like me outta the job. I like my big handsome machines. There my babies...I feed them, water them, and occasionally even get them outta a cuvette jam! I am not sure I would trade a working machine for one that is smaller and technically harder to work on. If I can get enough blood out of a baby to run neonatal samples I am good to go! I don't need the machine....

    For other instances...
    Think how useful that will be to forensic police for analysing DNA samples from body fluids at the scene of a crime.
    Thats nice but it still will go to the lab and be looked over and looked over. Crime scenes can't be whizzed through. There special and must be doddled over to make sure every ounce of evidence is obtained. I still would bet an old timer would find something out before this new machine did.
    The channels, which are up to 50 hundredths of a millimetre wide, are a fraction of a hair's width across so fluids flow by capillary action.
    Okay...and most chemicals leave behind quite an amount of gritty aftermath behind. I am guessing if that one lil tube becomes stopped up it will leave the machine in a death mode! It seems more matinance will be required...hince more fluids(bleach so forth) will still be used not saving the cost on fluids!
    Blood gas analyser on a chip - for monitoring vital signs during surgery
    Sounds more expensive to patient care.

    We can't forget the main goal in the medical field. It is patient care! The low cost, efficent, and caring medical attention to patients. Sometimes Newer isn't always better. I want the reliable machine, with the reliable field rep that is trained and will train you in working with the instruments basic necessities. Quite an advance though Capt'n and an enjoyable read!

    ~DR~


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