In particular, this sensitivity makes the new chips better at searching for strands of DNA. At the moment, such searches require the number of DNA molecules in a sample to be multiplied using a trick called the polymerase chain reaction before there is a decent chance of detecting the target.

ECONOMIST: Labs on a chip

This brief moment is all the time that the sensors inside will have to measure how the sample's electrical resistance changes, so Dr Brooks and his team have their work cut out to get good data.

ECONOMIST: Magnetism