Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
3.4
Conclusions
Unlocking the vast amounts of information present within individual cells and tissue
cultures has historically involved extensive biological procedures such as gel elec-
trophoresis, Southern and Northern blotting, mass spectrometry and many others,
resulting in cellular population analyses of a single chemical species that could take a
long time. However, with the advent of nanosensors and biochips and mankind's
increased control over materials on the nanometer scale, significant advances have been
made in the field of cellular and biological analyses. With the development of intracel-
lular nanosensors (i.e., fiber-optic nanosensors and particle-based nanosensors), the
ability to monitor individual chemical species in a site-specific fashion within an indi-
vidual cell has already provided and continues to provide unprecedented information
about cellular and biological systems. Employing these nanosensors, it is now possible
to monitor, in real time, the effects of a particular stimulus on cellular response, and cor-
relate this response to parameters such as growth phase of the cell. Such analyses could
potentially provide insight into cell-to-cell variabilities in response of a particular type
of cell to a stimulus. By employing implantable nanosensors that rely on narrow band-
width spectral profiles, such as the SERS-based nanosensors, the ability to detect hun-
dreds of different chemical species simultaneously within an individual cell may
provide important insights into the interrelated interaction of various biological or cel-
lular pathways.
In addition to the vast amount of knowledge that can be gained from site-specific mon-
itoring of cellular and biological reactions using nanosensors, rapidly growing advances
in biochip technology and high-density arraying of biological receptor molecules has
allowed for the rapid detection of as many as hundreds-of-thousands of different analytes
simultaneously. Biochips represent a unique bioanalytical tool that could allow for the
screening of potential biological markers to many different diseases or illnesses with min-
imal sample and low cost, resulting in a reduction in the number and volume of samples
to be sent to labs for medical diagnoses. In the last 15 to 20 years, biochip-based sensing
has seen a rapid and dramatic growth, in which this technology has developed from a
research-based tool to commercially available devices for a wide variety of applica-
tions. 6,117 In fact, currently, there are over 15 companies that have been formed worldwide
with multiple product lines devoted to biochip sales and this number is continuously
growing. Based upon these events, the future for biochip-based analyses looks very prom-
ising. With the great deal of diagnostic and predictive medical information that could be
gained from a small biological sample (e.g., drop of blood) and the hundreds of thousands
of different biomarkers that could be examined in a single biochip-based analysis, biochip-
based technologies may one day result in a small integrated device that can be found in a
doctor's office or even home for the rapid screening of various illnesses or diseases. Recent
advances in the integration of the sensing arrays and transducer arrays used for signal
readout have already resulted in commercially available biochips. However, further
advances in the integration of sampling systems, inexpensive optical excitation, and sig-
nal amplification and discrimination are still needed before reliable and inexpensive
devices can be made available to the population. Presently, biochip technologies have rev-
olutionized the fields of genomic and proteomic research and current trends in miniatur-
ization and inexpensive fabrication methodologies offer the promise of small integrated
systems capable of providing rapid medical screenings for many different diseases with
only a small amount of sample.
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