Interviewee: Stephen Fodor. Stephen Fodor talks about the photolithographic technique used to synthesize pieces of DNA on the surface of GeneChipsâ„¢. (DNAi Location: Manipulation > Techniques > Large-scale analysis > Interviews > GeneChipsâ„¢, step by step)

The way we make these DNA chips is that we actually build the DNA step by step at each location on one of these chips. In a process known as photolithography we excite with light a certain region on the chip and that prepares that particular site for chemical reaction. One of the four building blocks, A, C, G or T are applied and wherever we shine the light, that building block will stick and grow. And so we go through a multiple number of steps in this way, over literally millions of different sites on a large piece of glass, and what we get are literally millions of different precise locations on the chip, each with their own different strand of DNA on it.

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