China’s biochip industry is developing rapidly, and nearly 400 biochip products have been launched. Photo/Yang Linjing The Ministry of Science and Technology and the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine jointly hosted a conference on the application of biochips in medical and food safety inspection in Beijing recently. Conceptual issues in tumor research Malignant tumors are becoming the “No. 1 killer” that endangers human health. Therefore, it is very important to clarify the key mechanisms of malignant tumor development, establish tumor prediction and early diagnosis technology, and establish specific targeted therapy and individualized treatment measures for effective clinical treatment of tumors, reduce the mortality rate of malignant tumors, and improve the survival rate and quality of life of patients. It is of great importance to effectively treat tumors, reduce the mortality rate of malignant tumors, and improve the survival rate and patients’ quality of life. In the keynote report entitled “Conceptual Issues of Tumor and Biochip Detection”, it was pointed out that the main problems encountered in tumor treatment are, firstly, the resistance of tumor cells after treatment due to the mutation of cancer cells and other reasons; secondly, the metastasis of cancer cells is the cause of death of most cancer patients, and many related scientific problems have not been solved yet. There are some important conceptual issues that must be clarified in our current research on tumorigenesis, development and evolution. One is that a tumor is not a pile of cancer cells, but a tissue with a tight structure. Second is the heterogeneity of tumor cells, that is, among the many tumor cells, the stem cell-like tumor cells should be the primary targets of cancer therapy. Third, the dispersal and metastasis of cancer cells are two related but not simultaneous events. In most cancers, the dispersal of cancer cells may be an early event, and the mechanism that awakens the growth potential of dispersed cancer cells to develop into metastatic lesions will be the key to explore new cancer therapies. Fourth, cancer may be a systemic disease that manifests itself as a localized cell growth abnormality. In the congress report, it is argued that the complexity of the genome is expressed through the diversity of gene expression regulation. The variation of genes during tumor development presents differences in spatial and temporal distribution, which is both complex and variable. Currently, the relationship between genetic variation, cellular carcinogenesis and the clinical biological features during tumor development is still unclear to humans. Using the very limited knowledge of tumor to solve the extremely complex clinical problems, especially the changes in gene and protein expression levels, a lot of research work is still needed due to the limitations of the level of technological development and knowledge. Individualized treatment is the direction Tumors arise from the interaction of many factors such as environment, genetics and dietary habits. Due to the unclear etiology, complex pathogenesis and variable clinical manifestations, there are often obvious individual differences in treatment effects. The individualized treatment of tumor is to determine the relative best treatment plan for this patient’s individual characteristics through clinical testing means according to the patient’s specific situation. In the report “Gene chip technology is an important support in modern tumor research and clinical diagnosis”, it is said that breast cancer is one of the common malignant tumors that seriously endanger women’s health, and chemotherapy and endocrine therapy are the main means of treating breast cancer nowadays, which can reduce the risk of recurrence and metastasis for about 1/3 of patients. However, at the same time, there are some patients who are not sensitive to chemotherapy and endocrine therapy, which leads to over-treatment of breast cancer patients and increases the pain and economic burden of patients. Individualized treatment can reduce the overall cost of treatment while ensuring the efficacy, and establishing standardized individualized treatment is the development direction to optimize the systemic treatment of breast cancer. When it comes to the current situation of clinical treatment of tumors in China, the current major staging and staging standards of tumors have not changed for 30 years and are mainly based on symptoms, signs, imaging examinations, and histocytopathology for diagnosis and guiding clinical treatment. The existing tumor prognostic factors, such as tumor size and lymph node metastasis, have poor accuracy and low efficiency in judging the prognosis of tumors. In the treatment of esophageal cancer, Herger et al. found that there are obvious individual differences in the response of different patients to treatment, and it is not only unhelpful but harmful to continue radiotherapy and chemotherapy for those who have failed to respond to radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The biochip is a high technology rapidly developed in the field of life science in the late 1980s, which mainly refers to the construction of miniature biochemical analysis system on the surface of solid chip through microfabrication technology and microelectronic technology to achieve accurate, rapid and high-throughput detection of cells, proteins, DNA and other biological components, and its efficiency is hundreds or thousands of times of traditional detection methods. hundreds to thousands of times more efficient than conventional assays. The application of biochips in the field of clinical therapy will have great prospects. In the past, traditional treatment methods were not targeted and ignored individual differences among patients, which often brought inconvenience and increased patients’ pain. Since biochip is an advanced large-scale high-throughput detection technology, it can detect multiple genetic changes at the same time and guide doctors to formulate the most appropriate treatment plan for different patients or different disease periods of the same patient, thus realizing individualized treatment. Currently, expression profiling microarrays, microRNA microarrays and SNP microarrays are the most used in tumor prognosis, in addition to transcript microarrays, cellular microarrays and tissue microarrays, which provide the necessary technical means to explore individualized treatment of breast cancer. Biochips can help physicians identify the factors associated with treatment sensitivity from the many factors that influence breast cancer efficacy. For example, gene expression profiling microarrays can be used to distinguish patients who are sensitive and insensitive to chemotherapy, and then carry out targeted treatment to find the best therapeutic drugs and protocols, ultimately leading to improved outcomes. The establishment of gene expression profiling and standardized diagnosis system is the foundation for individualized tumor prevention and treatment. With the gradual maturation of high-throughput gene and protein analysis technology such as biochip, the application of large sample, high-throughput and multi-factor analysis methods will promote the development of systematic tumor biology and will push forward the improvement of tumor prevention, early diagnosis and treatment. The latest development trend shows that biochips are being combined with some existing molecular typing and imaging technologies, while providing new molecular typing detection technologies and analysis methods for individualized patient treatment, so that clinicians can have a “sharp tool” to accurately combat cancer lesions. Using the 22K Human Genome Array biochip from BIO, we studied the differential gene expression between the treatment-sensitive and non-sensitive groups of breast cancer, and obtained 285 differentially expressed genes. The preliminary molecular expression profiles were obtained by molecular function annotation of these 285 genes, and these results will provide a theoretical basis to guide the individualized treatment of clinical breast cancer. The study of miRNA expression profile of esophageal cancer already completed by Herger et al. identified miRNA molecules associated with different tissue types, different degrees of differentiation and lymph node metastasis. The research results not only provide molecular markers for molecular typing of esophageal cancer, but also guide the clinic for more accurate clinical staging and individualized treatment. Experts at the conference believe that individualized treatment can effectively improve the current problems of low cure rate and under- or over-treatment of tumor treatment in China, and truly bring benefits and hope to patients. Biochip technology is a cutting-edge, pioneering, comprehensive and universally applicable technology, and like all other cutting-edge technologies, rapid and effective industrialization is the key, so a practical docking mechanism must be found, and the key to biochip industrialization is effective docking with actual clinical work. Biochip R&D and clinical application should form an interaction, and we should unite relevant government functional agencies, universities, research institutes and biotechnology companies to build a docking platform, and all parties should jointly promote the industrialization of cutting-edge biomedical technologies, including biochip technology, to create the greatest possible social benefits in the shortest possible time.