Science of Salivary Diagnostics

The scientific foundation for saliva based molecular diagnostics has been built over more than a decade and has been to a large extent supported by the National Institutes of Health. This work has delineated some of the basic mechanisms by which systemic disease processes affect the constituents of saliva. Animal models supported by this effort confirm that there is a disease specific alteration in the molecular alphabet in the presence of systemic diseases; proteomic, metabolomic, and genetic.

Human investigations have identified molecular footprints for a number of malignancies and for other systemic diseases. Our salivary transcriptome (messenger RNA) and protein markers for oral squamous cell cancer have been independently validated by the National Cancer Institute – Early Detection Research Network in a study involving 395 subjects. These biomarkers were subsequently further validated by PeriRx in a rigorous prospective blinded trial. The narrated slide show below gives additional information on the science of salivary diagnostics.

Published on Apr 20, 2014
It is a technique used to make multiple copies of a segment DNA of interest, generating a large amount of copies from a small initial simple. Amplification of DNA segments makes possible the detection of pathogenic virus or bacteria, identification of individuals (DNA fingerprinting), and several scientific research involving DNA manipulation.