MICROARRAYS - BIOTECHNOLOGYS DISCOVERY PLATFORM FOR FUNCTIONAL GENOMICS

Advances in microarray technology enable massive parallel mining of bi ological data, with biological chips providing hybridization-based exp ression monitoring, polymorphism detection and genotyping on a genomic scale. Microarrays containing sequences representative of all human g enes may soon permit the expression analysis of the entire human genom e in a single reaction. These 'genome chips' will provide unprecedente d access to key areas of human health, including disease prognosis and diagnosis, drug discovery, toxicology, aging, and mental illness. Mic roarray technology is rapidly becoming a central platform for function al genomics.