Bottom-up manufacturing may hold the key to production of tiny medical devices capable of testing for multiple molecules like viruses or cancer markers, according to Penn State researchers.

In bottom-up fabrication, researchers manufacture nanowires using inorganic or organic material. They then attach probe molecules to the wires, and attach each group of nanowires and their probes to the chips in the numbers and locations desired.

The bottom-up method allows researchers to use materials that are not easy to integrate using top-down methods, and to optimize the design for each type of probe molecule.