The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) is looking ahead to 2027-2031 and is asking the research community to help shape what comes next.

Through a new Request for Information (NOT-DE-26-015), NIDCR is inviting researchers, industry, healthcare professionals, scientific organizations, patient advocates, and other stakeholders to share perspectives on emerging research needs, gaps, and opportunities in dental, oral, and craniofacial health.

The request focuses on four broad areas:

• Advancing dental, oral, and craniofacial research
• Connecting oral health research with the broader biomedical research enterprise
• Strengthening research capacity, infrastructure, tools, and resources
• Improving the management and conduct of research

For the salivary bioscience community, this is an important conversation to follow.

As research continues to explore connections between oral and systemic health, non-invasive biospecimen collection can help researchers investigate biological processes across disciplines, populations, and time. Saliva provides researchers with an accessible biological matrix that can support this broader view of human health.

At Salimetrics, we believe advancing salivary bioscience means doing more than providing assays and collection devices. It means staying connected to the priorities, challenges, and opportunities shaping the research our customers will be conducting next.

Researchers and other stakeholders can provide input to NIDCR through September 14, 2026.

Read the NIH Notice: NOT-DE-26-015