Andersson Helene, van den Berg Albert
MESA+ Institute, University of Twente BIOS, the Lab-on-a-Chip Group, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
Curr Opin Biotechnol. 2004 Feb;15(1):44-9. doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2004.01.004.
Many efforts are currently underway to try and mimic the properties of single cells with the aim of designing chips that are as efficient as cells. However, cells are nature's nanotechnology engineering at the scale of atoms and molecules, and it might be better to envision a microchip that utilizes a single cell as an experimentation platform. A novel, so-called laboratory-in-a-cell concept has been described, where advantage is taken of micro- and nanotechnological tools to enable precise control of the biochemical cellular environment; these tools also offer the possibility to analyse the composition of single cells. Methods for single-cell handling and analysis are being developed and will be required for this concept to progress further.
目前正在进行许多努力，试图模仿单细胞的特性，以设计出与细胞一样高效的芯片。然而，细胞是原子和分子尺度上的自然纳米技术工程，或许设想一种将单细胞用作实验平台的微芯片会更好。一种新颖的、所谓的“细胞内实验室”概念已被描述，该概念利用微米和纳米技术工具来精确控制细胞的生化环境；这些工具还提供了分析单细胞组成的可能性。单细胞处理和分析方法正在开发中，这一概念要进一步发展将需要这些方法。
