We are quickly wandering into an area with few legal protections and even fewer legal precedents in case law. Sitting at the intersection of these two laws is a fascinating device known as the gene or DNA chip, a fusion of biology and semiconductor manufacturing technology. Like their microprocessor cousins, gene chips contain a dense grid or array placed on silicon using techniques such as photolithography. In the case of gene chips, however, this array holds DNA probes that form one half of the DNA double helix and can recognize and bind DNA from samples taken from people or organisms being tested. After binding, a laser activates fluorescent dyes attached to the DNA, and the patterns of fluorescence are analyzed to reveal mutations of interest or gene activity.
All indicators are that the gene chips are obeying Moore's Law.
Three years ago, the first gene chips held 20,000 DNA probes, last year the chips had 65,000, and chips with over 400,000 probes have recently been introduced. The chips are attracting intense commercial interest. In June 1998, Motorola, Packard Instrument, and the U.S. government's Argonne National Laboratory signed a multiyear agreement to develop the technologies required to mass-produce gene chips. Experimental chips are already at least 25 times faster than existing gene sequencing methods at decoding information. The chip decodes genetic information a paragraph or page at a time, rather than letter by letter, sequencing an entire genome in minutes and locating missing pieces or structural changes.