The Future of Miniaturization and Autor/ation

Imagine the clinical laboratory in 2010. What changes will we see if the trend toward automation and miniaturization of laboratory tests continues? Many experts believe that the use of microchips, tiny chips with miniaturized components, will revolutionize the laboratory. We will see some changes within the next 5 years, and many more during the next decade. Likely scenarios, if researchers and chip designers continue to have the success they have enjoyed thus far, include the development of systems based on "lab-on-a-chip" technology. In these fully integrated systems, the functions of test tubes, beakers, and pipettes are all miniaturized and placed onto chips that are sometimes no bigger than a postage stamp. After a test sample is placed onto the chip, the chip is inserted into a small analyzer that prints a digital report within seconds or minutes. The impact of these devices on laboratory practice could be enormous. Microchip Development The development of microchips, also called biochips, began in the 1980s with the appearance of "micromachines." Developing these miniature machines stimulated engineers to design small silicon, plastic, or glass chips with miniaturized parts such as lamps, filters, and the electronic circuitry to permit fluid flow through the chip. The new chips can both pretreat a sample and carry out a chemical reaction. The early 1990s brought the first commercial chip-technology products to market. In the medical laboratory field, i-STAT (East Windsor, NJ) developed the first fully automated pocket-sized analyzer, with the capability to do a complete panel of tests in chemistry (eg, blood gases, electrolytes) and hematology (ie, glucose) at the patient's bedside. Using chips housed in a disposable cartridge and only two to three drops of blood, the miniature analyzer generates results in approximately two minutes. Because cartridges are used only once, quality control is simply a series of internal, quality checks that monitor the