Professional Documents
Culture Documents
SEMINAR REPORT
ON
BIOCHIPS
Submitted By
U.SIVA NAGU
(07X21A0552)
TENALI
2010-2011
CONTENTS
1. DEFINITION
2. IN WHAT WAY THEY WORK
• GETTING UNDER THE SKIN
• THE S4MS CHIP
BIOCHIPS USED TO DETECT AND MONITOR DISEASES
• CHIPS THAT FOLLOW FOOT STEPS
• OXY SENSORS
• BRAIN SURGERY WITH AN ON AND OFF SWITCH
• ADDING SOUND TO LIFE
• ‘CLRION’ AND ‘NUCLEUS’
• EXPERIMENT WITH LOST SIGHT
• FENDING OFF DRUG RESISTANT TB WITH BIOCHIP
TECHNOLOGY
5. BIOCHIPS RAISE CRITICAL ISSUES OF PERSONAL
PRIVACY
8. ADVANTAGES
9. DISADVANTAGES
INTRODUCTION
Biochips were invented 9 years ago by gene scientist Stephen Fodor . In a flash of
light he saw that photolithography, the process used to etch semi conductor circuits in
to silicon could also be used to assemble particular DNA molecules on a chip.
The human body is the next biggest target of chip makers . medical
researchers have been working since a long period to integrate humans body
and chips . In no time or at maximum within a short period of time Biochips
can get implanted into the body of humans . So integration of humans and
chips is achieved this way .
Money and research has already gone into this area of technology
.Anyway such implants are already being experimented with animals . A
DEFINITION:-
A biochip is a collection of miniaturized test sites (microarrays) arranged on
a solid substrate that permits many tests to be performe At the same time
inorder to achieve higher throughput and speed . Typically a biochips surface
is no larger than a finger nail . Like A computer chip that can perform
millions of mathematical operations In one second , a biochip can perform
thousands of biological reactions Such as decoding genes , in a few seconds .
The chips are of the size of an uncooked grain of rice small enough
to be injected under the skin using a syringe needle . They respond to a
signal from the detector , held just a few feet away by transmitting an
identification number . This number is then compared with a database listing of
registered pets .
The new s4ms chip will get underneath the skin sense the glucose
level and send the result back by radio frequency communication. A light
emitting diode starts of the detection process . The light that it produces hits a
fluorescent chemical : one that absorbs incoming light and re emits it at a
longer wavelength . The longer wavelength of light is then detected , and the
result is sent to a control panel outside the body . Glucose is detected, because the
sugar reduces the amount of light that the florescent chemical re emits . the more
glucose there is the less light that is detected.
The civil debate over biochips has obscured their more ethically
benign and medically useful applications . Jeffery housdoff of the Beth Israel
deaconess medical center in Boston has used the type of pressure sensitive
resistors found in the buttons of a microwave oven as stride timers .He places
one sensor in the heel of a shoe and other in the ankle and adds a computer
to the ankle to calculate the duration of each stride(step).
Young healthy people can regulate the duration of each step very
accurately , but elderly patients prone to frequent falls have extremely variable
stride times . by using this information doctors can change their medication and
ask them to do exercises . Hausdorff is also is also using the system to
determine the success of treatment of congestive heart failure . By monitoring
the number of strides that a person takes , he can directly measure the
patients activity level , by passing the often flawed estimate made by patient .
Oxy sensors
This oxygen chip is perhaps about two years away, but the dimensions of
another temperature – sensing chip has been reduced to 3mm per side. The transition
of certain semi conductors to their conducting state is inherently sensitive to
temperature, so designing the sensor was simple enough. With some miniature radio
frequency transmitters, and foam rubber earplugs to hold the chip in place, the device
is complete. Applications range from sick children, to chemotherapy patience who
can be plagued by sudden raises in body temperature in response to their anti cancer
drugs.
Sensing and measuring is one thing, but can we switch the body on and off?
Heart pace makers use the crude approach : large jolts of electricity to synchronize the
pumping of the heart. The electric pulses of the Activa implant, made by US – based
medtronics or directed not at the heart but the brain, they turn off brain signals that
cause the uncontrolled movements, or tremors, associated with diseases such as
Parkinson’s.
Drug therapy for Parkinson’s disease aims to replace the brain messenger,
dopamine, the product of the brain cells that are dying. But eventually that drugs
affects wear off, and the erratic movements come charging back.
The activa implant , cleared for use in the US in AUG, 1997 is a new
alternative that users high frequency electrical pulses to reversibly shut off the
thalamus. The implementation surgery is far less traumatic than thalamotony
And if there are any post operative problems the stimulator can simply be turned off.
The implant primarily interferes with aberrant brain functioning.
The most ambitious bio engineers are today trying to add back brain functions,
restoring sight and sound where there was darkness and silence.
The success story in this field is the cochlear implant. Most hearing aids are
Glorified amplifiers, but the cochlear implant is for patients who have lost the hair
cells that detect sound waves. For these individuals no amount of amplification is
enough.
The cochlear implant delivers electrical pulses directly to the nerve cells
In the cochlea, the spiral-shaped structure that translates sound into nerve pulses. In
normal hearing individuals, sound waves set up vibrations in the walls of the cochlea,
and hair cells detect these vibrations. High frequency noises ( deep notes) vibrate the
base of the cochlea, while low frequency notes vibrate nearer the top of the spiral.
The implant mimics the job of the hair cells. It splits the frequencies of incoming
noises into a number of channels ( typically eight)
The two most successful cochlear implants are the clarion ( developed at the
university of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and Advanced Bionics Corporation
of Sylmar in California) and the Nucleus ( developed at the University of
Melbourne,Australis, and made by cochlear of Sydney, Australia).
But speech is perceived in an area of the cochlea only 14mm long, and spacing the
electrodes too close to each other causes signals to bleed from one channel to another.
With the ear atleast partially conquered , the next logical target is the eye.
Several groups are working on implantable chips that mimic the action of photo
receptors , the light sensing cells at the back of the eye. Photo receptors are lost in
retinitis pigmentosa , a genetic disease,and in age related macular degeneration , the
most common cause of lost sight in the developed world. Joseph Rizzo of the
Massachusetts eye and ear infirmary , and john Wyatt of the Massachusetts institute
of technology have made a twenty electrode,1mm square chip,and implanted it at the
back of rabbits eyes.
The original chip,the thickness of human hair,put too much stress on the eyes
the new version is ten times thinner. The final set up will include a fancy camera
mounted on a pair of glasses.The camera will detect and encode the scene,then send it
in to the eye as a ;laser pulse,with the laser also providing the energy to drive the chip.
Rizzo has confirmed that his tiny array of light receivers(photo diodes) can
generate enough electricity to run the chip.He has also found that the amount of
electricity needed to fire a nerve cell into action is about hundred fold lower in the eye
than in the ear,so the currents can be smaller,and the electrodes more closely spaced.
For now,the power supply comes from a wire inserted directly into the eye
and ,using this device , Rizzo has detected signals reaching the brain. Eugene de Juan
of Johns Hopkins Wilmer eye Institute is trying to answer that question by using
human subjects.His electrodes , inserted directly in to the eye , are large and some
what crude .But his results have been startling . Completely blind patients have seen
well defined flashes, which change in position and brightness as De Juan changes the
position of the electrode for the amount of current.
In his most recent experiments , patients have identified simple shapes out
lined by multiple electrodes . With as little as an 8x8 array , de Juan believes he could
approximate character recognition, and a 25x25 array might give a crude image.
The big money in eye implant is in Germany , where the government has
pledged millions of US$.One is similar to the US projects in which chips are
implanted on the surface of the retina,the structure at the back of the eye.the other
project is putting its implants at the back of the retina where the photo receptors are
normally found.These “subretinal” chips may block the transport of oxygen and food
to the overlying nerve cells, so Everhart Zrenner of the university of Tubinger of
Germany is developing ‘chain mail’ electrode arrays, with plenty of holes for the
delivery of supplies.
They chose TB for the test because new drug resistant strains have
sprung up in Russia and can easily spread to the whole world, including US.If they
can quickly identify specific strains, it will help doctors prescribe the best
DRUG-RESISTANT TB
By fixing only one strand of the double helix to each gel pad, the chip
employs the natural tendency of each DNA base to pair with it’s complementary base.
When tests begin, a sample of unknown single strands of TB DNA will be spread on a
chip and allowed to naturally pair up with single strands of known TB DNA already
in the gels. A direct match will identify drug resistant TB strains.
By changing the DNA samples in the gels, scientists can also use this
technique to diagnose a unlimited range of other diseases quickly and efficiently.
EVIDENCE OF SUCCESS
The researchers have reason for being optimistic about this project. “The fact
that it has worked in one sample and it wasn’t difficult to perform, shows us that this
has a lot of potential,” . “The current round of tests will tell us more.”
However, bringing the test into the clinical setting is another giant
leap. “We’re using DNA , not actual fluid from patients,” “But it does give us a good
idea of the direction we want to go.”
If successful, they would move to a larger scale study with more patients and
more conditions and then try to get it to work using fluid samples from active TB
patients.
“We’ll be doing a full scale clinical diagnosis bit it’ll take years to get to the
market,” “Considering that TB is becoming a global epidemic, some urgent steps
must be taken to speed up the process. The first step is to figure out if this has a
chance to work.”
How could you use such a biochip to delve into my genes? All you
would have to do is to obtain a little of my DNA, say from a blood sample or even a
bit of hair. Flush fluid containing my DNA over the biochip surface. Every place my
DNA has a gene matching one of the biochip strands, it will stick to it in a way the
computer can detect.
Now here is where it gets interesting – and scary. The mad rush to
sequence the human genome is over. The gene research firm Celera announced
Monday it has essentially completed the sequence, with over 90% of genes done.
Already the researchers are busily comparing their consensus “reference sequence” to
the DNA of individual people, and noting any differences they detect.
Everything genetic about me that is different from you is caused by a few thousand
snps; otherwise you and I are identical.
Ones snp profile will reflect all of this variation ,a table of contents of my
chromosomes, a molecular windows to my soul. When millions of such snp profiles
have been gathered – and we’re talking years, not decades – any computers worth
keeping will be able to identify other individuals with profiles like mine, and, by
examining health records, standard personality tests, and the like, correlate parts of
my profile with particular traits.
Texe Marrs documents that the United States government is working on such a
system at this very moment. By the year 2000 it will be fully implemented. Many
animals and some human beings are already having Biochips implanted. Almost all
of the people with implants are unsuspecting victims. Biochips were surgically
inserted in their arms, hands, foreheads, ears, brains, or buttocks without their
knowledge.
But U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies are taking this technology one giant
step further. They fully intend to use Implantable Biochips to turn every man,
woman, and child into a controlled slave. Through cybernetic, biochip brain implants,
people will think and act exactly as pre-programmed. What a tremendous bonanza for
the coming Antichrist ! Inject the chip into a man or woman’s brain and he or she
instantly becomes a living vegetable and a subservient, New World Order Slave !.
Implantable Biochips and The End of Human Freedom and Dignity exposes the
government plot to wield this invasive, life destroying technology. Texe Marrs quotes
an executive officer of the World Future Society ( 27,000 influential members) as
saying : “A biochip implant could be used in a variety of human applications… A
number could be assigned at birth and follow that person throughout life ..It would be
implanted on the back of the right or left hand so that it would be easy to scan at
stores. The biochip implant could also be used as a universal type of identification
card”.
The Wall Street Journal says that a U.S. Naval research laboratory, funded by
intelligence agencies, is now able to unite living brain cells with microchips.; some
authorities fear that the Defense Departments intend to produce an “army killer
zombies !” One army expert alarmingly calls the new biochip implant a “Frankenstein
_ type weapon”.
Media Medical And Industrial Complex had a long term plan to implant
subcutaneous microprocessor for a variety of help , entertainment and
communication purposes by acclimating a generation of prospective customers to
such skin altering conditions.companies are seeding the market for their future
offerings.
entertainment options . Preserving that the first chips are ‘receive only’.They
would become the ultimate pagers : delivering a unification or internal ‘ping’
directly to human neurons.
FUTURE:-
If people feel that they loose their privacy because of Biochips, they
may resist use of it.But if they feel that it could help in a lot of ways like
detecting,minitoring and curing of diseases they can use them intensively.
ADVANTAGES OF BIOCHIPS:-
PATIENTS.
SIMULTANEOUSLY.
DISADVANTAGES:-