pune citybased national chemical laboratory ncl is developing a dna chip which would help identify and treat specific genetic disorders such as thalassaemia the department of science and technology dst is funding the three year projectbriefing reporters on the sidelines of india nano summit 2003 the nations first nano technology summit at the mahratta chamber of commerce industries and agriculture here on saturday ncl scientist murali sastry said the rs 1crore project which was launched two months ago will be completed within the stipulated timenano technology which refers to a billionth of an atom covers a wide spectrum of sciences with applications in medicine and healthcare agriculture and biotechnology smart cards cell phones micro satellites dna computing space and nuclear energy development among other areaswe are confident of completing the project by the middle or end of 2004 sastry said pointing out that this cheaper alternative to dna sequencing could be used to treat indiaspecific genetic disorders such as hypertensionelaborating on the project sastry said the idea was to plant the dna chip into the body to treat ailments this will not only reduce the cost of drugs production and enhance the level of automation but also revolutionise medical science he saidpointing out that india had carved a niche for itself among the global scientific community sastry said indian laboratories were involved in the synthesis of materials whereas others were still in the process of assemblingwhile the summit was aimed at bringing leading researchers corporates and venture capitalists on one platform to promote nano technology research and commercialisation speakers both from india as well as the us admitted that this remained mostly a governmentfunded activity with hardly any private investmentlinda molnar director technology strategy of girvan institute of technology a nasafunded silicon valleybased research corporation said nano technology was a crucial subject that needed to be included in university curricula after it and bt this is an emerging area in frontier technologies she said pointing out that in the next couple of years tools to build nanoscale products would be needed