Saliva Research News - McDevitt Research Labs UT Austin

Commercialize this: 10-minute cancer test
Tech Confidential Blog
Web Posted: 08/22/2007

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have come up with a simple-to-use and cheap device that can detect cancerous cells while a patient waits in the doctor's office. Currently the device tests for oral cancer cells but could likely be adapted to detect cervical cancer cells as well. The device is made of acrylic and contains a fluorescent tag that adheres to proteins found in cancerous cells, known as biomarkers. Patient samples with cancerous cells then glow green under a fluorescent microscope. The equipment needed to perform the test is relatively cheap, and the process takes about 10 minutes. more...(pdf)

Ten-minute cancer test*
by Katherine Bourzac
ABC News: Technology & Science
Web Posted: 08/21/2007

Researchers are developing a microfluidics device that can identify cancer cells during a routine visit to the doctor's office.

Researchers at the University of Texas are developing a microfluidics device that detects oral-cancer cells in 10 minutes and is simple and cheap enough for use in the dentist's office. The device could be adapted to test for other cancers, including cervical cancer. It works well on cancer cells grown in the lab and is currently being tested on biopsies from oral-cancer patients. more...(pdf)

*Above referenced article also published by
MIT Technology Review (pdf)
08/21/2007

Ten-minute cancer screening possible
by R. Colin Johnson
EE Times: Design News
Web Posted: 08/13/2007 03:26 PM EDT

A new in-office test for oral cancer that takes only 10 minutes will soon be available using lab-on-a-chip microfluidic electronics, according to scientists supported by the National Institutes of Health. Billed as the world's first fully automated, all-in-one test, the lab-on-a-chip electronic reader, which is about half the size of a toaster, can scan cells brushed from the inside of the mouth with a swab. more...(pdf)

Lab on a Chip for Oral Cancer Shows Promise
National Institutes of Health Press Release
Web Posted: 08/08/2007

Finding out whether that unusual sore in your mouth is cancerous should become a lot faster and easier in the years ahead. Scientists supported by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), part of the National Institutes of Health, have engineered the first fully automated, all-in-one test, or lab on a chip, that can be programmed to probe cells brushed from the mouth for a common sign of oral cancer.

About half the size of a toaster, the portable device yields results in just under 10 minutes, or well within the duration of a routine visit to a dentist or doctor. Currently, patients must undergo an often painful tissue biopsy and usually wait three days to a week for the lab results. “What’s exciting is the speed and efficiency that this test will bring to the diagnostic process,” said John McDevitt, Ph.D., a scientist at the University of Texas at Austin and the senior author on the paper, published in the August issue of the journal Lab on a Chip. “No longer will patients need to endure referrals, long waits for test results, and scheduling follow up consultations. Patients will get immediate results and feedback from their dentist or doctor on how best to proceed.”. more...(pdf)

Lab-on-a-Chip Device Developed to Screen for Oral Cancer

Lab-on-a-Chip Oral Cancer Screening Tests
University of Texas at Austin Press Release
Austin, Texas

This year about 34,000 Americans will be diagnosed with oral or throat cancer. These types of cancer will result in over 8,000 deaths this year, or about 1 person every hour, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Of the 34,000 newly diagnosed oral cancer patients, only half will be alive in 5 years. The prognosis for this group of cancer patients has not significantly improved over the last few decades. Worldwide the problem is much greater, with over 350,000 new cases each year.
The reason for the high mortality rate here is that oral cancer is typically discovered only in the late stages of its development. Once discovered, oral cancer is particularly dangerous because it tends to produce second site, primary tumors. Unfortunately, for patients that do survive a first encounter, they have up to a 20 times higher risk of developing a second type of cancer. There are many types of oral cancers, but 90% fall into the type of squamous cell carcinomas.

Many oral cancer patients are diagnosed during a dental exam. While there are some tools used by dentists to help diagnose the disease, most of the tools lack the sensitivity and selectivity to make this diagnosis reliable or are associated with side effect for the patient. New methodologies that can be used at the point-of-care are desperately needed to help improve the diagnostic and prognostic capabilities for this area. Follow up visits which serve to follow the progression of the disease after treatment are one area that may be particularly well suited for a lab-on-a-chip portable oral cancer screening unit. We are now involved in an active collaboration supported by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research Division of the NIH that pairs the McDevitt lab at the University of Texas at Austin with the labs of Dr. Spencer Redding and Dr. Chih-Ko Yeh at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.

In this paper published in Lab on a Chip (featured on inside front cover), we describe a lab-on-a-chip system that may be suitable for the screening of oral cancer patients. more...(pdf)

Spit May Expedite Medical Diagnoses
by Don Finley
San Antonio Express-News Medical Writer
Web Posted: 05/12/2007 03:26 AM CDT

First you spit.

Apply a drop or two of saliva to a plastic card, about the size of a bar coaster, embedded with a tiny chip. Fifteen minutes later, find out what ails you — from infections to heart disease to certain cancers.

That's the idea behind a federally funded, $6.1 million project that includes researchers from San Antonio, Austin and Kentucky. At the heart of the project is a lab on a chip, developed by chemists and engineers at the University of Texas at Austin. A biosensor the size of a microchip can be taught to recognize dozens of antibodies and proteins that point to specific diseases. more...(pdf)

Texas Researchers Aim to Use Saliva To Diagnose Health and Disease
by Lee Clippard
UT College of Natural Sciences press release
12 February 2007

AUSTIN, Texas—Innovative saliva-based health diagnostic tools will be developed by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin through a $6 million, multi-institutional grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Saliva—with its slimy mix of proteins, hormones and antibodies—can tell a lot about a person’s health, and it is much easier and less painful to collect than blood. But, the medical community lacks the technologies to perform large-scale salivary diagnostics. more...(pdf)

Dental Compare: The Buyer's Guide for Dental Professionals featured the above UT press item in their Restorative News on 12 February 2007.

UT Heads Up Medical Research Project
Austin Business Journal
12 February 2007

The University of Texas is leading a $6 million research project to develop medical diagnostic tools that involve saliva rather than blood.

Saliva contains proteins, hormones and antibodies that can serve as key indicators about a patient's health, and it's easier and often less painful to obtain than blood. But no technology exists on a large scale for doctors to study saliva as a diagnostic tool more...(pdf)

Oral-Based Diagnostics Overview
New York Academy of Sciences eBriefings
by Bob Roehr
4 January 2007

Blood and urine samples are the basis for over 90% of routine medical tests performed today. But as the use of diagnostic tests proliferates, there is an increasing call for less invasive procedures in clinical practice. Oral-based diagnostics are a leading alternative, and their use has expanded rapidly over the last decade.

The search for biomarkers for disease and response to therapy has focused on blood because of its systemic reach and the robust size of the sample. But few patients take kindly to multiple blood draws, they require skilled personnel, and all those who handle samples run the risk of exposure to blood-borne pathogens. more...(pdf)

DEVICES TO DROOL FOR: Miniaturized analytical techniques are now sensitive enough to detect traces of biomarkers in saliva. Is saliva ready for point-of-care diagnostic devices?
by Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay
ACS Publications: Analytical Chemistry, 1 July 2006

Which would you prefer: getting a needle stuck into your arm for a blood test or spitting into a cup? Most people would grab the cup.

Officials at the U.S. National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) realize that. Since the early 2000s, they have been coaxing physicians and researchers to consider saliva as a diagnostic fluid, much like blood or urine. Now that miniaturized analytical techniques are sensitive enough to detect trace amounts of analytes in saliva, they think it’s time to make point-of- care salivary diagnostic devices commonplace (1–3).

NIDCR has funded multidisciplinary approaches to develop saliva-based devices to diagnose illnesses like oral cancer, diabetes, infectious diseases, and pancreatic cancer. “The real end goal here, something that we think is technically feasible, is to create a lab-on-a-chip [device] that is sufficiently small that it can be placed in your mouth so that it’s there all the time,” says Lawrence Tabak, the director of NIDCR. more...(pdf)

Austin American Statesman - "John McDevitt has a sense for science applied."

On a sunny Saturday afternoon in May at entrepreneur Rick Hawkins' stunning home overlooking Town Lake, John McDevitt looked happy and relaxed. Dressed in a polo shirt and ...read more.

Application of microchip assay system for the measurement of C-reactive protein in human saliva.

In the last decade, saliva has been advocated as a non-invasive alternative to blood as a diagnostic fluid. However, use of saliva has been hindered by the inadequate sensitivity of current methods to detect the lower salivary concentrations of many constituents compared to serum... read more

Lab on a Chip Cover Article / Gallery of LOC Covers / Direct Link to Research Article

Daily Texan - "UT Researchers Create Sensors to Monitor Lymphocyte Production."

If there is an electronic eye and an electronic nose, it follows that there should be an electronic tongue. This tongue sensed salty, sweet, bitter and sour, and it was the humble beginning of a revolutionary..read more

The Business Of Nanotech
By Stephen Baker and Adam Aston

There's still plenty of hype, but nanotechnology is finally moving from the lab to the marketplace. Get ready for cars, chips, and golf balls made with new materials engineered down to the level of individual atoms

Pity the poor alchemists. They spent the Middle Ages in candle-lit laboratories, laboring to brew universal elixirs and to turn base metals into gold or silver. They failed utterly. By the dawn of the Scientific Revolution, researchers equipped with microscopes founded modern chemistry -- and dismissed alchemy as hocus-pocus more...(pdf)