BioTronics is a biotech company headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts in the United States. The company is the developer of the AmpliSensor technique and its application to high resolution Polymerase Chain Reaction assays.
The AmpliSensor method is a real-time tool used for the detection and quantitative measurement of DNA by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The test works by detecting fluorescence. It is based on the principle that fluorescence resonance energy transfer can be used to detect duplex formation between complementary nucleic acid strands. Two complementary DNA strands are labeled with donor and acceptor fluorophores, respectively. If the strands come together with base pairing, the fluorescence resonance energy transfer between the fluorophores is facilitated. Therefore, the extent of energy transfer can be used to measure the amount of duplex formation between the two strands and hence the degree to which they are complementary in sequence. It can be used in for a variety of research and clinical purposes, including the detection of a specific pathogen in a blood sample taken from a human patient. For instance, the method has been used successfully for the diagnosis of Hepatitis, tuberculosis, and cytomegalovirus. The test was invented in 1991 by BioTronics' president Cheng Wang. BioTronics received a United States trademark on AmpliSensor in 1996 (U.S. trademark registration number 1958576) and the trademark was declared dead and cancelled on December 2, 2006
Wang is also the president of Acu-Gen, the maker of the Baby Gender Mentor assay kit. The BGM test is marketed for determining the gender of an unborn baby as early as five weeks into a pregnancy. The test works by detecting fetal cells that have entered the mother's bloodstream through fetomaternal microchimerism. The company performs two tests; the first is a quantitative polymerase chain reaction and the other is a proprietary test. The sample is tested for the presence of the Y chromosome, which is present only in males. If there is no Y chromosome, the embryo is female. The test is controversial both because of its claimed 99.9% accuracy and over possible medical ethics questions associated with its use. Acu-Gen and BioTronics share a common headquarters.