For his groundbreaking findings in electrical biochip technology, Dr. Rainer Hintsche, Associate and Technical Director at eBiochip Systems, with his partners from Siemens and Infineon, recently received the renowned German Future Prize - Deutscher Zukunftspreis für Technik und Innovation 2004.

The biochip is a highly sensitive sensor system for DNA or proteins. Through biomolecules anchored on a silicon chip – so-called catcher molecules – biologically active compounds are unerringly bound from a solution and identified. In competing technologies, detection is usually done via opto-physical methods, which are technically complex and cost intensive and react sensitively to disturbances by particles and diffusion.

eBiochip Systems have achieved a method to read biological detection processes directly via electrical signals from the chip. In this process, the catcher molecule gives an electrical signal as soon as it has identified its counterpart, which is then analysed directly by the electronic measuring equipment.

The biochips, which are produced at Fraunhofer ISIT, can be quickly integrated into the portable and easy-to-use measuring system in the form of „chip sticks“ for the conduction of analyses. Thus, for example antibiotics in foodstuffs, biological weapons or pathogenic germs can be detected directly and flexibly. These systems are already being used successfully in many European laboratories as analytical platforms.

Together with industrial partners, this principle was further developed in order to configure sensor systems which are economically efficient for a large-scale market and can be deployed as miniaturised laboratories. The next objective is to establish applications in medicine, industry and research on a broad basis and to market biochips in combination with the high-capacity equipment technology.