Biochips

Biochips
• A biochip is a collection of miniaturized test sites (microarrays) arranged on a solid substrate that permits many
test to be performed at the same time.

• Like a computer chip that can perform millions of mathematical operation in one second, a biochip can perform
thousands of biological operations in a few seconds.

• Chips are of the size of uncooked grain of rice small enough to injected under the skin using a syringe needle.
• Biochip is inserted in to the body with a hypodermic syringe.
Biochip Technology
• The biochip system is Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system.

• The multiple technologies needed to make a successful biochip

Sensing chemistry: to sense the biologial processes.

Microarraying: the dense, two-dimensional grid of biosensors deposited on a flat substrate,

which may either be passive (e.g. silicon or glass) or active.
Signal processing: Transduction must be done to translate the actual sensing event into a
format understandable by a computer, which then enables additional analysis and
processing to produce a final, human-readable output
Biochips
 In pets it is injected behind the neck.

 In humans it is inserted in hands or in the forehead.

 The biochip uses radio frequency identification (RFID)system that uses low frequency radio
signals to communicate between a biochip and reader.

Components:

 A biochip implant system consists of two components

1. The Transponder

2. The reader
Transponder
• Transponder in biochips is of passive type, contains no battery of its own.

• Advantage of passive transponder is it has very long life up to 99 years and no maintenance is
required.

• Transponder consists of four parts :-

i) Computer micro chip

ii) Antenna Coil

iii) Tuning capacitor

iv) Glass Capsule

Transponder
Computer Microchip :

 It stores identification numbers from 10 to 15 digits long.

 The ID number is etched via laser on to the microchip.

Antenna coil: It’s a simple coil of copper wire around a iron core which receives and sends the signal
from reader.

Tuning capacitor: It stores the small electric charge sent by reader or scanner and activates the
transponder.

Glass capsule:

 It houses the entire transponder usually of the size of a uncooked grain of rice measuring about 11
mm in length and 2 mm in diameter.

 It is made up of soda lime glass.

Reader
• Consists of an exciter coil which creates an electromagnetic field to excite the implanted biochip.

• The reader carries a receiving coil that receives the transmitted code or ID number from the
biochip.

• Reader decode the received code and display the result in the LCD display.
 TYPES OF BIOCHIPS

BIOCHIPS

Protein Microarray Microfluidic chip

DNA Microarray
- Analyse functional proteins and - lab-on-a-chip
- Set of tiny DNA dots – PROBES – on a strong
their levels in the samples
surface - Alternative to conventional
- Support surface : microtitre laboratories
- Used to calculate gene expression levels
plate, nitrocellulose membrane,
- Identification is by labelling the probes – glass plate, etc., - Complex network with
fluorophore/chemiluminescence labelling multiple applications
- Needs very less sample
 Application areas

Pharmaceutical Medical Forensics – Environmental

research – drug diagnostics – identity of Transplantation testing –
discovery glucose detector, the criminals – compatibility contaminants
infection – DNA based testing trace
detection, etc. between donor
& recipient
 ADVANTAGES LIMITATIONS

1. Viability of cells is not affected – no 1. Standardization of assays –

heating up of the transmitter
involves high level of
2. Consumes very less power – 1/10th of
that used in flashlight bulb accuracy – interface of the
3. Can be modulated by biomembrane assay and the
potential instrumentation
4. They are of vanishingly small size 2. Mass production of DNA
5. Parallel detection of multiple samples
chips – limited
for diagnosis
6. High speed and accuracy of testing 3. Chip implant – varied
constraints