DNA tests on the spot. (Technology Focus).

Not long ago, if a word started with "bio," most of the tech-minded had a 50 percent chance of guessing the rest. Either "technology" or "medicine."

Now anyone is just as likely to leap to "agent" or "terror"

Ever since the anthrax letters were discovered in October, there has

One of those devices is a portable sensor that weighs about as much as a laptop computer. It is being refined by a Baltimore company for use by hazmat teams for quick diagnosis of suspected pathogens. The company, Environmental Technologies Group, the detection and protection systems division of Smiths Aerospace, expects to have it on the market in a few months.

The device was nicknamed HANAA by its developers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, who described it as a "handheld advanced nucleic acid analyzer." Environmental Technologies intends to bring it to market under the trade name Bio-Seeq.

The unit measures 11 1/2 x 3 x 7 inches and weighs 6 1/2 pounds. According to project engineer Doug Green, it can run as many as 12 polymerase chain reaction tests at once, or test samples from different points at a site.

Polymerase chain reaction uses a set of short pieces of DNA, called primers, to amplify target DNA. A set of primers will react only with the DNA of a specific organism, so when there's a reaction and the DNA starts to duplicate, the reading is positive.

If there is no reaction after a number of tries, the verdict is negative. Because of the recycling needed for corroboration, the negative often takes longer to determine than a positive.

According to Green, the device gets a negative reading within 16 minutes from "the lowest detectable sample," which may consist of a clump of only a few cells. Larger samples return results faster, he said.

Bio-Seeq will be packaged as a companion unit to the company's APD-2000, designed to detect nerve agents. It will have an aluminum extrusion with an ABS plastic facade. "It can stand to be beaten around a bit," Green said.

Pricing has not been decided, he said, but the unit is expected to come in under $20,000.