I agree with Roger. The lab-on-a-chip is most likely to arrive first in
the area of genetic diagnosis and it will be a long time before it becomes
cheap enough for routine use. This is because of the cost of development
and fabrication and the additional cost of licensing patented technologies
and genes. Multiple immunoassays on a chip has been "imminent" for a
number of years and should eventually arrive. However lab-on-a-chip
measurement of the myriad of small molecules and ions of interest in
medicine is so much more difficult because there is no single technology as
in the former two instances that allows measurement of most or all of the
molecules of interest.
Perhaps the technologies that may make the major impact over the next
decades are even more complex than current laboratory-based techniques.
Some starters might be widespread use of tandem mass spectroscopy,
proteomics by mass spec or 2D-electrophoresis and the word I heard for the
first time a few days ago "metabonomics" using NMR of body fluids.
Bruce Campbell
****************************************
Bruce Campbell FRCPA FAACB
Sullivan Nicolaides Pathology
Ph 61 (0)7 3377 8672
Fax 61 (0)7 3870 5989
Email [log in to unmask]
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