Just one square inch, the chip contains 2, 056 microvalves that can selectively mix reagents together (in this case to test for the activity of a particular enzyme in a bacterium) in 256 reaction chambers, each one holding less than one-billionth of a liter of fluorescent dye.

FORBES: Magazine Article

However, a small percentage of people are born with a single-letter change in their DNA for this enzyme that causes the codeine-to-morphine reaction go faster.

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So the last step on the winding road was the creation of a bacterial strain without any restriction-enzyme genes, and thus without restriction enzymes, so that the team could have a purified reaction vessel in which the new genome could do its thing.

ECONOMIST: Artificial lifeforms