Biochips in Robotics Engineering

A large amount of research and development has contributed to the rapid evolution of biochip technology. Combining semiconductor technology with molecular biology, biochips supplement electronic circuits with biological material. Composed of DNA, RNA or protein, a biochip holds these materials to the surface of a “chip”. Chips are usually composed of glass, plastic, or silicon. Considered a “technological platform”, biochips usually refer to a series of products due to the variety of biochemical assays that are manufactured for different applications.  Read more about Bioinformatics Market Potential

A biochip is not a single product, but rather a family of products that form a technology platform. Many developments over the past few years have contributed to its evolution. The very concept of a biochip was made possible by the work of Fred Sanger and Walter Gilbert, who were awarded a Nobel Prize in 1980 for their pioneering DNA sequencing approach that is widely used today. DNA sequencing chemistry in combination with electric current, as well as micropore agarose gels, laid the foundation for considering miniaturizing molecular assays. Another Nobel-prize winning discovery, Kary Mullis’s polymerase chain reaction (PCR), first described in 1983, led to further development by allowing researchers to amplify minute amounts of DNA to quantities where it could be detected by standard laboratory methods. A further refinement was provided by Leroy Hood’s 1986 method for fluorescence-based DNA sequencing, which facilitated the automation of reading DNA sequence.

Further developments, such as sequencing by hybridization, gene marker identification, and expressed sequence tags, provided the critical technological mass to prompt corporate efforts to develop miniaturized and automated versions of DNA sequencing and analysis to increase throughput and decrease costs. In the early and mid-1990s, companies such as Hyseq and Affymetrix were formed to develop DNA array technologies

Developments in artificial intelligence, robotics and miniaturization are finally coming together to enable tasks that extend human capability to precisely manipulate objects of varying dimensions. Biochip plays a major role since robotics has evolved from an attempt to imitate the human form, to a capability to carry out individual tasks. The applications of such machines are in manufacturing, surgery, and exploration, particularly in hostile environmental conditions.

Scientists and engineers are also working on imitating brain structures such as the cortex and retina to devise chips that contain neurons and a primitive rendition of brain chemistry.

At the same time a vast amount of research is being directed towards developing emotive expression, the ability to learn and embedding common sense in machines. The achievements so far in robotic replication have been fairly elementary.

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