Sunday, May 25
1:30 p.m. - 3:30 pm
320 - Contemporary & Clinical Issues: Saliva Diagnostics - David T. W. Wong, D.M.D., D.MSc.
Saliva for clinical utilization is a few years away. An urgent need to fulfill the translational and clinical utilities of saliva is to define the spectrum of informative analytes and targets that can be used for disease detection and health surveillance. The salivary proteome, and more recently the transcriptome, can confer disease associative capabilities. It is therefore essential to comprehensively identify and characterize the human salivary proteome and transcriptome.
Three NIDCR-funded groups (Scripps, UCLA and UCSF) are concurrently deciphering, cataloging and annotating the human salivary proteome. The saliva proteomic consortium revealed a wealth of new data, including novel proteins and suites of native peptides. Currently there are ~1200 parotid and ~1100 submandibular/sublingual proteins identified. The human salivary proteome will be available by 2007. Compelling panels of salivary proteomic biomarkers have been identified for oral cancer and Sjögren Syndrome (SS). The salivary transcriptome consists ~3000 species of mRNA. Subsets of the salivary transcriptome have been found to be highly associated with clinical diseases. For oral cancer, a panel of four salivary mRNAs is highly predictive. For SS, 27 salivary RNA were highly discriminatory for the disease.
The salivary proteome and transcriptome are foundational blocks and essential prerequisites as the diagnostics alphabets for the translation utilization of saliva. These layouts for diagnostic applications will be ready in 2007.
Dr. Wong is professor and associate dean of research in the Division of Oral Biology & Medicine at the UCLA School of Dentistry. He is also the director of the UCLA Dental Research Institute (DRI). Dr. Wong is an active and leading scientist in oral cancer and saliva diagnostics research. He has authored 140 peer reviewed scientific publications. His research is funded by the NIH since 1986. He directs the UCLA Collaborative Oral Fluid Diagnostic Research Center, the UCLA comprehensive T32 Clinical Research Training program as well as the laboratory of head and neck oncology research. He chaired the NIDCR Special Grant Review Study Section from 2002-05. Currently he is a member of the NIH CSR Cancer Genetics Study Section and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS).
For the past five years, Wong’s research has taken on a focus on defining the diagnostics alphabets of saliva (proteomics and genomics) as well as developing nanotechnology-based point of care technology for salivary diagnostics. Significant progress has been made based on these emerging technologies as well as the translational applications for human disease detection. Wong is the recipient of the 2007 Salivary Researcher Award.
