Miniaturization of analytical systems

Miniaturization has been a long-term trend in clinical diagnostics instrumentation. Now a range of new tech-nologies, including micromachining and molecular self-assembly, are providing the means for further size reduction of analyzers to devices with micro- to nano-meter dimensions and submicroliter volumes. Many analytical techniques (e.g., mass spectrometry and elec-trophoresis) have been successfully implemented on microchips made from silicon, glass, or plastic. The new impetus for miniaturization stems from the perceived benefits of faster, easier, less costly, and more conve-nient analyses and by the needs of the pharmaceutical industry for microscale, massively parallel drug discov-ery assays. Perfecting a user-friendly interface between a human and a microchip and determining the realisti