Newscast: Advances in Biotechnology

Advances in biotechnology, coupled with the recent characterization of a vast array of analytes and biomarkers in saliva, have created the opportunity to measure components of biological systems in oral fluids and apply knowledge gained from those measurements to a diverse spectrum of research. Dr. Natalie Ceballos, an associate professor in the department of psychology, gives us an insight on what Dr. Granger’s lecture will consist of.

“He’s basically going to talk about his interdisciplinary work looking at salivary indacey’s of stress and immune function and other things like this including genetic variability thats related to behavior, cognition, and health. So I think it’ll be relevant for the students and community because it will address stress and immune function which are issues that we all deal with regardless whether we are in a clinical population or not.”
– Dr. Natalie Ceballos

From a single drop of saliva, information can be obtained about the psychobiology of stress, infectious disease history, environmental exposure to chemicals, and oral health status. Dr. Ceballos mentions the importance of Dr. Granger’s research in her field of study.

“Dr. Granger’s work is directly relevant to the type of work I do in the field of addiction research and his work as really made my job a lot easier, so instead of doing something invasive like drawing blood in a research study we can now collect saliva on a little cotton dental rolls and a little bit of salvia can be used to do the same types of assay’s for biological indecency’s that we used to have to use blood for so its a lot less invasive and a lot less expensive, so Dr. Granger’s work has really revolutionized my field especially”.
– Dr. Natalie Ceballos

Dr. Granger will present an overview of this emerging field Monday April 8th at 6 pm in Alkek 250.

Sierra King, KTSW News.