Want to learn about your own oral bacterial microbiome?

Hi everyone! My name is Meri, and I’m so excited to have joined this group!! I’m the head research coordinator at UCSF Dental School, and the study I work on is called BRUSH up.

UCSF School of Dentistry and Stanford University have teamed up to create our research team called BRUSH up: Bacteria Research UCSF/Stanford Study of Hyposalivation. Our team is trying to understand how salivary flow over time and space changes the bacteria through out the mouth. We are looking for people who are willing to participate in our study who live around or are willing to come to the UCSF Dental School. One of the benefits of our study is that we will not only ascertain your personal micro biome in the mouth, but we will also set up a consultation with you to discuss those findings with you!

If you would like to learn more, please look at our website: hyposalivation.org or email us at hyposalivationstudy at ucsf dot edu.

Interesting! Meri, can you say a bit more about the questions you are trying to answer? Based on the web site, it looks like you would need to follow people for a long time, if you want to follow the progression of oral disease. Or is it more about identifying people who experience chronic hyposalivation and seeing if they have oral disease at a higher rate than others?

Overall, we want to map the microbial communities of the mouth and how saliva impacts the environment where certain communities live. We want to be able to determine which bacterial communities are present in which areas of the mouth in health adult mouths so eventually we can look at the mouth’s of those who have chronic low salivary flow and be able to ascertain which bacterial communities they seem to be lacking. Essentially, we want to be able to create novel therapies and diagnostics to help those who have chronic low salivary flow. Our study is only looking at acute and controlled onset of low salivary flow, so our longest portion of the study is only 6 weeks. Our other portion of the study is looking at the mouth’s of those who have Sjogren’s Syndrome or those who have chronic hyposalivation, and that portion of our study is only a 2 week commitment.

Got it - thank you! I hope some people respond.