Introduction

Lowering the costs of healthcare and increasing its accessibility is acritical need of today’s society. Miniaturized electronic sensors area possible way to both improve healthcare and lower the cost of medicaldiagnostics. Their small size and portability can lead to integration intopersonalized diagnostics tools and emergency care. In addition, faster,smaller and more efficient sensors can greatly impact chemical andbiological safety.

The rapid progress demonstrated in the computer industry and in genomics isstirring interest for growth and applications in healthcare and safety. Therelentless progress and developments in microfabrication predicted byMoore’s law, which forecast that the number of transistors on anintegrated circuit would double every two years, has until now beencontinually producing faster, cheaper, and smaller consumer electronics. Ananalogous exponential growth in DNA sequencing is even faster thanMoore’s law. Ten years ago, it would have taken many months tosequence a human genome. Today, the same task can be completed within oneday. This impressive progress is possible owing to innovative applicationsof microfabrication technologies. If this can be applied to healthcare, itcould stimulate a similar evolution, with applications such as early stagedetection of biological infection outbreaks and chemical hazards, whichcould mitigate epidemics tremendously.