Rat Cell Communicates with Computer Chip

I just read an article on the discovery channel website claiming that researchers at the Institute for Biochemistry in Germany have developed a computer chip that can communicate with a rat nerve cell. The "NaChip" is 1 mm but has over 16,000 transistors to match the ion channels of the cell. This developement can lead to huge advances in the world of prostetics or even organic computers. The researchers on this project are planning on from moving from the rat cell to the rat brain in the future.

Here is the address:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20060417/nervechip_tec.html?source=rss