Researchers at Stanford University have brought about a unique
marriage between computer chips and living cells that could
greatly accelerate everything from tests for new drugs to
screening for diseases such as leukemia. The basic living
element in every organism is the cell. Humans have at least 100
trillion of them, all designed to carry out various bodily
functions. Each cell is a complex bag of enzymes and chemicals
surrounded by a spherical membrane, and how a cell reproduces
and works with other cells determines how efficiently the
organism performs. Scientists have struggled for years to
understand the cell and especially the membrane that seems to
control most of the crucial functions, but they have been
hampered by the difficulty of growing cells in a laboratory
culture for research. A decade ago, Stanford researchers
developed artificial membranes that were so like the real thing
that living cells could be tricked into attaching themselves to
them. Two years ago, graduate student Jay T. Groves lear