HCG is present in a woman's urine only during pregnancy. The agency has cleared for marketing more than 635 biotech devices, a growing subdivision of the broader area of medical devices. Biotech devices are used in hospital and private labs, physicians' offices, and in consumers' homes. Biotech-based diagnostic devices are often more direct than their conventional counterparts. Monoclonal antibodies and DNA probes rapidly recognize proteins or genes distinct to a particular disease-causing microbe or virus.
Biotechnology offers different approaches to a single problem.
Still other HIV tests using biotechnology are experimental. Four areas where biotech devices are having an exciting impact are biomaterials, biosensors, monoclonal antibodies, and DNA probes. New Materials Developing replacement body parts has long been a goal of medicine, but one surrounded by steep obstacles. Donor organs and tissues are exceedingly scarce, and even when they are available and transplanted, the recipient must take immunosuppressant drugs such as cyclosporin for life. Yet a synthetic implant can be toxic or walled off by scar tissue.