Healthy hearts

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Tags: discovery, health and lifestyle, medical research, summer-2010

Dr Punyadeera

An award-winning UQ research project aims to detect, prevent and manage heart disease using a simple saliva test.

Dr Chamindie Punyadeera received a 2010 UQ Foundation Research Excellence Award to investigate the diagnostic potential of saliva as a sample rather than blood – an Australian first.

Dr Punyadeera has been successful in the detection of the C-Reactive Protein (CRP) biomolecule in saliva, which is elevated in cardiac patients and people who have heart disease.

Previously, the only way to detect the presence of this biomolecule was to use a blood test.

Dr Punyadeera has proven a correlation between the CRP biomolecules present in saliva and in blood, and is developing tests to detect heart failure and heart attack more easily.

“Saliva is a very effective tool for measuring the human body’s health and well being, however to date saliva has been regarded as inferior to blood-based tests,” Dr Punyadeera said.

“Because saliva testing is non-invasive, easy for practitioners and patients, and does not require sample pre-processing, you should be able to have accurate heart diagnosis in less than 15 minutes.”

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) refers to diseases of the heart and blood vessels and is the number one cause of death in Australia.

With one person dying of this debilitating disease every 10 minutes, early detection and intervention will lead to a significant reduction in CVD-related deaths.

Dr Punyadeera is also the recipient of a Queensland Government Smart Future Award, which was presented by Premier Anna Bligh in April.

By Izzy Koh

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