藥物或生醫材料的開發有賴於大量的動物實驗，但近年來大眾對此種強加動物痛苦的行為產生反感，因此若能結合微流體控制、細胞培養與非侵入式感測器製作的技術，發展出以細胞為感測器的生物晶片，將可直接並快速地瞭解生命體對外界刺激的反應。此晶片的開發將有效地減少動物實驗，成為生技領域中的熱門產業。本文中將針對細胞活性評估原理、細胞活性檢測晶片的發展，及現有之實際應用，作一概述。

The development of drugs or biomaterials needs the assistance of massive animal experiments. Recently, people disapprove the behavior of forcing animals to suffer pains. If we can develop a cell-based biochip by integrating microfluidic control, cell culture and fabrication techniques of noninvasive sensors, the response of a living organism to extrinsic stimulations can be directly and fast realized. It will be helpful to minimize the animal experiments and become a hot issue in biotechnology fields. In the article, the principles, present development and
practical applications of a cell-activity estimation chip are described