1. Biochip
The sequence and position of each molecule in the array are known, which is a preset sequence lattice. Microfluidic chips and liquid-phase biochips are new types of biochip technologies developed after microarray chips. Biochip technology is the basic content of system biotechnology.
Biochip is based on the principle of specific interaction between biomolecules and integrates the biochemical analysis process on the surface of the chip, so as to achieve high-throughput and rapid detection of biological components such as DNA, RNA, peptides, and proteins. The narrow concept of biochip refers to the biomolecule lattice formed by fixing biomolecules on solid-phase emitters such as silicon wafers, glass sheets, plastic sheets, gels, and nylon membranes through different methods. Therefore, biochip technology is also called microdisplay technology, and solid-phase substrates containing a large amount of biological information are called microarrays, which are also called biochips. Biochips have developed microfluidic chips on the basis of such chips, also known as microelectronic chips, that is, microscale laboratory chips.
Then, let’s take a look at what is a biochip? Simply put, a biochip is to put a biological sample on a piece of glass, silicon, nylon membrane and other materials, and then use an instrument to collect the signal, and use a computer to analyze the data results. It is easy to associate biochips with electronic chips. In fact, the two do have one basic thing in common: a small size contains a lot of data and information. But they are two completely different things. The electronic chip is provided with a semiconductor electronic unit, and the biological chip is provided with a biological probe molecule.
The concept of the chip is derived from the concept of integration. For example, electronic chips mean turning big things into small things and integrating them together. Biochips are also integration, but the integration of biological materials. Like laboratory testing, the detection of blood glucose, protein, enzyme activity, etc. on a biochip is also based on the same biological reaction principle. So the biochip is a carrier platform. This platform has many materials, such as silicon, glass, membranes, etc., as well as some polymers with three-dimensional structures. The platform is densely packed with various biological materials. The chip is just a carrier. What to do and what to test is still done by biologists. In other words, reactions that used to require a large number of test tubes in very large laboratories are now transferred to the chip and occur simultaneously.
2. Current status of biochip development
Next, let’s take a look at some of the current developments in biochips.
China's biochip industry chain is divided into upstream raw material industry, midstream manufacturing industry, and downstream application market. The upstream raw materials include chip substrates, spotting, probe preparation, etc.; the main products of the midstream manufacturing industry are gene chip diagnostic kits and gene chip related instruments, which account for 86% and 14% of the market respectively; the downstream application market is mainly medical institutions, Home, third-party diagnostic outsourcing agencies, etc. my country's biochips are still stuck in scientific research fields such as bioinformatics, and the field of molecular diagnosis has not been widely used. China's biochip market has huge potential, but it only accounts for 5% of the global biochip market. China's biochip industry is still in its infancy. Most biochip companies focus on applications, including in vitro diagnostics, CTC cell capture, cell counting, blood glucose monitoring, etc. Among them, in vitro diagnostic companies are the most, more than 3/4. China's biochip industry has fewer upstream companies, insufficient R&D efforts, low R&D level, weak technology, and lack of first-mover advantages. Chinese biochip companies are dominated by medium-sized companies (registered scale of 10 million to 1 billion yuan), accounting for more than 58%. However, only 22% of the enterprises with a registered scale of more than 1 billion yuan and leading enterprises only account for 22%. The industrial structure needs to be optimized.