Frontiers of Engineering: Reports on Leading Edge Engineering from the 1999 NAE Symposium on Frontiers of Engineering (2000)
Chapter: 2 Making Sense of the Human Genome
Genes, Chips, and the Human Genome
STEPHEN P. A. FODOR
Affymetrix, Inc.
Santa Clara, California
Photolithography and combinatorial chemical synthesis have been used to generate miniaturized, high-density arrays of oligonucleotide probes. These probe arrays are then used for parallel nucleic acid hybridization analysis, directly yielding high-information-content sequence data. Implementation of the DNA array technology has required the integration of multiple technical disciplines resulting in the development of fabrication methods for the probe arrays, assays for the detection of target hybridization, algorithms to analyze the hybridization data, and platform instruments to support the technology. Applications of the arrays include the analysis of genetic mutations, the simultaneous expression profiling of thousands of genes, a new method to quickly discover polymorphisms of the human genome, and a new tool for genomic mapping. The talk reviews specific oligonucleotide probe array designs and paradigm experiments.
