Kym F. Faull, director of the Pasarow Mass Spectrometry Lab at UCLA, helped the team with several challenges, including reducing the amount of chemicals needed for reactions on the chip, enhancing test sensitivity and speeding up reaction analysis.

'The system allows researchers to not only test compounds quicker but uses only tiny amounts of materials, which greatly reduces lab time and costs,' said Faull, professor of psychiatry and bio-behavioural sciences at the Geffen School of Medicine.

The technology may open up many areas for biological and medicinal study.

The study is slated to appear in the Aug 21 edition of Lab on a Chip but is currently

online.