Doctors will no longer need to give me lollies to take away the sniff-sniffs.

Hate getting shots or blood drawn by your doctor, nurse, dentist, or mailman? Well, NIH has reported that scientists are developing super-sensitive saliva sensors that will make needles obsolete! HELL YEAH SCIENTISTS! From the article:

For people who dislike needles, medical tests that require a drop of saliva instead of a vial of blood will one day make a trip to a doctor or dentist much easier. But as scientists now construct the first of these saliva tests for early signs of cancer and other diseases, they continue to push the technological envelope in interesting ways.

As published in the August issue of the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics, a team of researchers supported by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), part of the National Institutes of Health, report they have developed an ultra-sensitive optical protein sensor, a first for a salivary diagnostic test. The sensor can be integrated into a specially designed lab-on-a-chip, or microchip assay, and preprogrammed to bind a specific protein of interest, generating a sustained fluorescent signal as the molecules attach. A microscope then reads the intensity of the fluorescent light — a measure of the protein’s cumulative concentration in the saliva sample — and scientists gauge whether it corresponds with levels linked to developing disease.