DNA chip technology in healthcare industry: Ethical and social implications

DNA chip technology, in spite of the numerous benefits, has not been widely accessible. Increasingly, DNA chips have received much research attention. In particular, with recent miniaturization trend of LOC (logic on chip) and the wide publicity of genome map, their commercialization prospect for disease diagnosis and treatment is more promising than before. However, wide acceptance of DNA chips requires overcoming various ethical, privacy and security issues. This paper aims to present effective utilization paths of DNA chip technology in healthcare industry. We discuss the CNSS (Committee on National Security Systems) model and apply it to DNA chips in regard to privacy issues, and further examine ethical and social dimensions.