Tissuechip development will benefit increasingly from applications developed for other industries. For example, flame hydrolysis deposition (FHD) of glasses has many applications in the telecommunications industry, and is now also being applied toward the development of new tissuechips. A recent report describes how FHD was used to deposit silica with different refractive indices, resulting in microstructures that can be readily incorporated onto a chip and that integrate both optical and fluidic circuitry on the same device.