Detecting major neurological disorders via saliva

A team of Korean researchers has, for the first time in the world, developed a technology capable of enabling early diagnosis of major neurological disorders, including epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and schizophrenia, using only a small amount of saliva.

This study was conducted jointly by a research team led by Dr. Sung-Gyu Park of the Advanced Bio and Healthcare Materials Research Division at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), together with Prof. Ho Sang Jung’s team at Korea University and researchers from the College of Medicine at The Catholic University of Korea. The research has recently been published in Advanced Materials, one of the world’s leading journals in the field of materials science, drawing significant international attention.

The joint research team developed a Galvanic Molecular Entrapment (GME)–SERS platform that directly detects structural changes in proteins using saliva, replacing conventional diagnostic methods based on blood or cerebrospinal fluid that are costly and invasive. This technology leverages plasmonic “hotspots” that form naturally as proteins are captured on nanostructures composed of copper oxide and gold (Au–CuO).

A key feature of the platform is its ability to amplify the extremely weak Raman signals of biomolecules by more than a billion times. Using this approach, the system can sensitively distinguish protein fibrillation states (monomers versus fibrils), which have been difficult to measure with conventional diagnostic techniques.

The joint research team analyzed saliva samples from a total of 44 patients with epilepsy, schizophrenia, and Parkinson’s disease, as well as 23 healthy controls, in collaboration with St. Vincent’s Hospital. The results confirmed that the technology can classify these disorders with high accuracy, exceeding 90%, reaching up to 98%.

In particular, the ability to distinguish neurological disorders based on fundamental pathological indicators-namely, structural changes in proteins rather than total protein concentration-is regarded as a rare and significant achievement on a global scale.

An era has begun in which brain disease conditions can be assessed through simple saliva analysis without the need for costly PET imaging or cerebrospinal fluid testing.”

Dr. Sung-Gyu Park, Study Principal Researcher, Korean Institute of Materials Science 

As the work has been published in a top-tier international journal, the originality and innovation of the technology have now been formally recognized worldwide. Prof. Ho Sang Jung of Korea University added, “Given its non-invasive and low-cost nature, the technology holds significant potential for expansion beyond hospital outpatient settings to include home-based diagnostic devices.”

The research team plans to pursue commercialization by developing portable Raman sensor–based point-of-care diagnostic devices and by promoting technology transfer to medical and life-science companies.