A bio-chip is a product of the interaction of biotechnology and microchip technology. A silicon microchip is the grass root of the present day computer. Millions of electrical circuits are integrated into a small silicon chip.
The thrust area of microchip (silicon chip) research is to reduce the size of the chip so that the size of the computer would be diminished. This has in fact diminished the size of the present generation of computers by many fold and made the business economically viable so that people at large have an easy access to buying personal computers. However, squeezing so many electrical circuits into a very small chip has a physical limit.
The number of circuits that can be squeezed on to a chip is limited by several factors. Firstly, the width of the chip cannot be reduced beyond the wavelength of light and secondly, due to too close placing of so many circuits, a short circuit may occur due to a peculiar phenomenon known as electron tunneling. Thirdly, the heat produced by the flow of electric current builds up and the system fails.
Alternately, a material of biological origin may be used in place of silicon, which may overcome the above mentioned shortcomings. This chip also would miniaturize computers to a further limit. The chip of this origin may be referred to as a bio- chip. Semi-conducting molecules are inserted into a protein framework that is fixed on a protein support.
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The advantage of proteins being used as the base of a bio-chip is that they form a predetermined three dimensional native structure. Proteins may take up a required shape by the flow of electric current in the circuits. Several important uses of the bio-chip have been envisaged.
These bio-chips could be fitted into miniature computers and these computers could be implanted into the body to respond to stimuli.
Devices implanted in artificial limbs might allow it to respond to stimuli in much the same way as a normal limb responds to a nerve impulse. Heart beat could also ‘be regulated and much more. All these are ambitious propositions, but still possible.