Narrator: This is Science Today. Will diagnostic saliva-testing someday be part of your regular check-up? Researchers at the UCLA School of Dentistry are working on it. Dr. David Wong, director of the university's Dental Research Institute says they have developed the first standardized RNA test for oral cancer, but they're now targeting other diseases.
Wong: We have five systemic disease that we're currently approaching: pancreatic cancer; breast cancer; lung cancer; diabetic Type 2 as well as Alzheimer's disease. So, the day will come that you will go into a doctor's office, a nurse's office or a dentist's office and before you see a physician or a dentist, you can have point of care, real-time screening using a non-invasive fluid. Our task is to bring the science.
Narrator: The UCLA group hosted a saliva screening station a recent annual convention of the American Dental Association.
Wong: To introduce the concept to the attending dentists there that there will be a changing landscape in their office about two years from now.
Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.