Meet Our Neighbors: Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research
After moving to a new office space, the UCI Blum Center is learning about their neighbors and inviting you along. Today, we meet the Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research located in Social Ecology I.
By Sasha Tesoro
November 2, 2021
With the start of a new in person school year after the whirlwind that was working and learning in lockdown, the UCI Blum Center for Poverty Alleviation was given a new start. Moving to a new office space in Social Ecology I on the UCI campus was the perfect way to begin this readjusting period and part of that is learning to work with those around you.
In settling into the area, we thought it best to get to know our neighbors and become familiar with the work that now surrounds us. In doing so, we thought it useful to introduce these amazing departments and labs to the student body and general public who may not have known who inhabits such a simple building.
Today, we explore a neighbor on our floor: the Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research.
The Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research (IISBR) is a research lab that falls under the department of Psychological Sciences and also includes some faculty members from the School of Public Health.
When interviewing Hillary Piccerillo, the IISBR Program Manager, she explained what exactly they do in their lab and office spaces in SEI. At it’s most basic, Piccerillo says, “Our lab’s primary mission is to promote and support the use of saliva in research.”
She went on to explain the growing use and importance of saliva in various fields of study and aspects of research and learning noting that although they do their own research and tests, the primary work they do involves testing saliva samples given to them by other researchers.
Among the number of tests IISBR can do, one of the most notable is their recent work on SARS-CoV-2 antibodies “…which allow researchers to determine whether study participants have antibodies to either the vaccine or natural exposure,” Piccerillo says. The IISBR is knowledgable and reliable for other forms of saliva testing, including but not limited to testing for cortisol and alpha amylase as well as metals in samples such as Lithium that is often used in many psychiatric disorder therapeutic drugs.
So how can students learn more or be involved with the Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research? Easy. Piccerillo says, “Students can reach out anytime to our lab email, iisbr@uci.edu or my email, hpicceri@uci.edu. I am always happy to answer any questions about our institute, and give tours of our lab space.”
Even further, in 2022 the IISBR hopes to relaunch their “Spit Camp,” a two day learning opportunity for researchers and students interested in learning more about what the IISBR does and how they go about it.
Even with all this amazing work they continue to do, the IISBR is still a lab that can be found on the same UCI campus students can be found walking across every day. So we asked Hillary Piccerillo, where is your favorite place on campus? Let’s see if her answer matches yours!
“It’s a toss up between our lab space and Aldrich park!” Piccerillo says. Finding time to walk through Aldrich Park was a welcome break from her work in the lab, although her work in the lab “became almost meditative during a chaotic time.”
The UCI Blum Center is proud to be surrounded by such world changing departments and labs that strive to create a better world for the future and the Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research is one you can count on.
If you want to learn more about the Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research, you can find their website here.
