Gene-chip Technology On Mass ProductionChina now is able to industrialize the production of gene-chip at an annual output of two million pieces, announced the inventor of Associated Gene Technology Co. recently.It is reportedly the first mass production drive in the world to put the technology on practical clinic operation. Gene-chip technology is an approach to design, based on DNA sequence information, and produce miniature gene-chip probe arrays, using spatially patterned combinatorial chemical synthesis, experts said. It is now feasible to make examination on several diseases or biological specimen at a time. The Associated Gene Technology Co. has made a greater advance to integrate 175,000 items of gene probe into a set of five tiny biochips, a high density of nearly 6,000 probes per sq. cm.. Now it only takes one test to accurately identify the expression events of about 40,000 types of genes in human body, while the examination had to be made at least 40,000 times before. Similar gene-chip costs over US$15 in the international market while China-made chip is only about US$2 each. The gene-chip technology has applied seven patents in China, and the company has developed ten series of productions so far. |
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