A Lollipop That Could Make Medical Testing Easier to Swallow

For Maral Mousavi, an associate professor in the Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering, medical testing should be almost as easy-and painless-as eating a lollipop. She wants routine testing to require less time, less money and, whenever possible, no needles.

Mousavi, the Edna Chow and Daniel Maneval Early Career Chair, leads USC Viterbi's Medical and Analytical Device Laboratory (MADLAB), which develops low-cost, easy-to-use sensors for patients who need frequent monitoring. The devices could provide health information in minutes, sparing patients trips to clinics, blood draws and long waits for laboratory results.

Among the lab's projects is a smart lactation pad that measures glucose and acetaminophen in breast milk in real time. It could help nursing parents monitor their health and their babies' without collecting milk in a tube or sending samples to a laboratory.

That philosophy led Mousavi and her doctoral students to create LollyLab, a low-cost, easy-to-use platform designed to help people monitor their health at home through saliva.

Shaped like a lollipop, the handheld device uses candy to stimulate saliva production. The fluid travels through tiny channels inside its hollow stick to built-in sensors that measure a particular substance. A small electronic reader, similar in concept to a glucose meter, translates the measurement into a number.

"It's just you and the candy, and that's the whole point of the device: to make it simple for everybody to use," said Mousavi, who's also an associate professor of psychiatry, behavioral sciences, pharmacology, and pharmaceutical sciences.

The process takes less than five minutes and requires only a small amount of saliva. Mousavi estimates that each disposable test could cost less than $5 if manufactured in large quantities, although a commercial price would also reflect regulatory approval, product development and other expenses.

So far, her team has demonstrated that the platform can measure three substances: vanillin, the principal flavor compound in vanilla; acetaminophen, the medicine sold under such names as Tylenol; and uric acid, which is associated with gout.

Monitoring gout and possible overdoses

For people with gout, knowing their uric acid level can guide everyday decisions. When too much uric acid builds up, needle-shaped crystals can form in the joints, causing intense pain and inflammation. Repeated attacks can eventually damage the joints.

Daniel Vargas Ramos, the lead author of the team's uric acid study and a doctoral student supervised by Mousavi, watched his father struggle with the disease. A meal or social outing could become a source of anxiety because his father feared triggering another flare-up. That personal connection makes him extra motivated.

"We want to provide [people with gout] with a way they know what their uric acid level is in real time, so they can better monitor and manage it," Vargas Ramos said.

A patient could use LollyLab to see how changes in diet, water intake or prescribed medication affect uric acid levels. LollyLab would not diagnose gout or replace a physician. Instead, the researchers envision it helping people already diagnosed with the condition see whether their levels are rising and whether their treatment appears to be working.

The team tested the device on six people and compared its readings with those from a commercial laboratory test. Every LollyLab result fell within 15% of the comparison measurement. The participants also rated the platform easy and comfortable to use.

A separate study explored acetaminophen monitoring, with children as an especially important potential audience. The common pain and fever medicine appears in numerous products, including some cold and flu remedies. Parents can unintentionally give a child more than one medicine containing it without realizing the doses are adding up. Too much can cause severe liver damage, and early symptoms may be mild or easy to miss. A quick reading at home could help concerned parents determine whether a trip to the hospital is needed.

"If you ask a kid to go to a clinic and do a blood draw, that probably is very different than just asking them to eat a lollipop," said student Sina Nejad, another of Mousavi's doctoral students working on LollyLab.

From proof of concept to possible product

In 2024, the researchers began with vanillin to determine whether the idea worked at all. Vanillin is the compound that gives vanilla its familiar flavor and aroma and is widely used in foods such as ice cream and chocolate. Although safe at the amounts normally used in food, excessive exposure has been associated with muscle weakness and damage to organs, including the liver and kidneys. The initial study showed that saliva could travel through the device and that its sensors could measure vanillin across the desired range.

Later studies refined the design and demonstrated its performance in people. Although the device has been tested in human participants, the number of tests remains small. Mousavi's team is now expanding the studies needed to validate the utility of LollyLab across various use cases and de-risk the technology to facilitate its future translation into an approved consumer product.

USC has patented this technology. Mousavi hopes through support from the USC Stevens Center for Innovation, the technology can be translated through licensing and scaled-up manufacturing.

LollyLab's next possible uses include monitoring caffeine and periodontal disease. A caffeine test could warn someone who has already consumed enough for the day before another cup raises the risk of shakiness, nervousness or an elevated heart rate.

"People need to know that and need a way to tell them when to stop," said Mousavi doctoral student Haozheng Ma.

For gum disease, saliva could reveal signs of inflammation and other problems in the mouth.

Whatever LollyLab ultimately measures, Mousavi's goal remains the same: make people more willing and able to look after their health.

"We're really trying to make testing fun, simple and low-cost," she said, "and to prompt people to do more frequent checks about their health."

Published on October 20th, 2026

Last updated on October 20th, 2026