Salivary diagnostics powered by nanotechnologies, proteomics and genomics

Background. The ability to monitor health status, disease onset and progression, and treatment outcome through noninvasive means is a highly desirable goal in health care promotion and delivery. Oral fluid is a perfect medium to be explored for health and disease surveillance. Methods. Two prerequisites exist before the goal of salivary diagnostics can be achieved: identification of specific biomarkers associated with a health or disease state and the development of technologies that can discriminate between the biomarkers. A recent initiative of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research has created a roadmap to achieve these goals through the use of oral fluids as the diagnostic medium to scrutinize the health and/or disease status of patients. This is an ideal opportunity to optimize state-of-the-art saliva-based biosensors for salivary biomarkers that discriminate between diseases. Results. Seven technology groups are developing point-of-care salivary diagnostic technologies. Three groups are working together toward deciphering the salivary proteome. Conclusion. These collective efforts and the convergence of salivary diagnostic technologies and the salivary proteome will present unparalleled opportunities to explore the diagnostic potential of saliva for oral and systemic diseases.