Nano-Berkeley & DNA Detector

Portable, Magnetic DNA Detector

Researchers use magnetic materials found in computer hard drives to build chips for detecting genes, cancer, and toxins.

By Kate Greene at Technology Review Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Stanford researchers have integrated an array of tiny magnetic sensors into a silicon chip containing circuitry that reads the sensor data. The magnetic biochip could offer an alternative to existing bioanalysis tools, which are costly and bulky.

"The magnetic chip and its reader can be made portable, into a system the size of a shoebox," says Shan Wang, professor of materials science and electrical engineering at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, CA. Its small size, he says, could make it useful at airports for detecting toxins, such as anthrax, and at crime scenes for DNA analysis.

The Stanford biochip is one of a number of approaches being explored to replace the current bioanalysis technology.
Read the full article at Technology Review

Links:

The Open Society Paradox: DNA Privacy

Genomic Privacy Project


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Berkeley expected to be first city to regulate nanotechnology by amending hazmat laws

Published at theage.com.au

The use of subatomic materials as microscopic building blocks for thousands of consumer products has turned into a big business so quickly that few are monitoring the so-called nanotechnology's effects on health and the environment.

So Berkeley intends to be the first city to step into the breach and attempt to regulate the nascent but fast-growing industry.

The City Council is expected Tuesday to amend its hazardous materials law to compel researchers and manufacturers to report what nanotechnology materials they are working with and how they are handling the tiny particles.

The aim of nanotechnology, in the commercial world, is to develop new products and materials by changing or creating materials at the atomic and molecular level. But much of the impacts from those developments remains unknown, particularly with regard to possible environmental and health problems.

"The ordinance is quite important, and I think it will be given worldwide attention," said David Rejeski, director of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, which is funded by the Woodrow Wilson International centre for Scholars and the Pew Charitable Trusts. "This is a new industry, and there is a lack of federal and state regulations."

Read the full article at The Age


Links:

Nanotechnology surveillance & privacy: an interview

EPIC Privacy Implications of Nanotechnology Page

Ethics in Nanotechnology: Privacy (EthicsWeb.ca)