What can chips technology offer for next century's chemistry and life sciences?

Abstract

Microfabrication gives access to surfaces of a few micron square, and the volumes of picoliter and femtoliter size. Integration of combinatorial synthesis, analysis speed, and small-volume handling are the main advantages. Examples of experimental results in drug discovery, analytical chemistry, and microbiology exhibit the potential of the chip-microstructure approach. © Neue Schweizerische Chemische Gesellschaft.