Imagine an early diagnostic test for a variety of disease that doesn’t even require a pin prick to draw blood? New research from UCLA may mark the beginning of such early, non-invasive diagnostic testing. A team of researchers led by Dr. David Wong, completed the most comprehensive analysis ever conducted using RNA molecules in human saliva and found spittle contains the same disease-revealing details found in blood.

"Our task is to bring the science. What is this information that can mark someone that may come on with osteoporosis, that may have an early onset of pancreatic cancer? And those are the value that we will bring for early detection of high impact, human disease through this totally non-invasive fluid. So the day will come that you will go into a doctor’s office, a nurse office or a dentist’s office and before you see a physician or a dentist, and you can have you point-of-care, real-time, screening using a non-invasive fluid."