Analysis of apoptosis on chip: Why the move to chip technology?

Apoptosis refers to a specific form of programmed cell death, which guarantees the welfare of the whole organism through the elimination of unwanted cells. The duration of apoptosis is short, involves single cells with morphological changes only after the point of no return, ending with phagocytosis without reaction in the neighbour cell. A number of techniques exist to measure cell death, but we still looking for a simple, specific and sensitive technique which offers the possibility to measure apoptosis on single cell level, without staining, in real time, with high-throughput. The Lab-in-a-Cell concept by using chip technology offers such a tool.