In molecular biology, Biochips are essentially miniaturized laboratories that can perform hundreds or thousands of simultaneous biochemical reactions. Biochips enable researchers to quickly screen large numbers of biological analytes for a variety of purposes, from disease diagnosis to detection of bioterrorism agents.
• Biochips are devices that can contain anywhere from tens to millions of individual sensor elements (or biosensors)
• The sensors are packed together into a package typically the size of a microscope slide. Because so many sensors can be put into such a small area, a huge number of distinct tests can be done very rapidly.
• Biochips are often made using the same microfabrication technology used to make microchips. Unlike microchips, however, biochips are generally not electronic.
• The key premise behind biochips is that they can do chemistry on a small scale. Each biosensor can be thought of as a "microreactor”, which does chemistry designed to sense a specific analyte.