The new chip, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, automatically treats, sorts and images small animals like the 1-millimeter C. elegans worm, accelerating research and eliminating human error, said MIT Assistant Professor Mehmet Yanik. He said while "lab on a chip" technologies are being developed to quickly sort and image individual cells, the MIT technology is the first that can be used to study whole animals.

Researchers traditionally conduct genetic tests by treating the tiny animals with a mutagen, or by using RNA interference, in which expression of a certain gene is blocked with a small strand of RNA. Such studies normally take months or years to complete. The new chip can sort and image the C. elegans worm in milliseconds.

Yanik; Chris Rohde, lead author of the study; graduate students Matthew Angel and Ricardo Gonzalez-Rubio, and postdoctoral researcher Fei Zeng describe the technology in the current early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.