Raman on the Brain
An enhanced spectroscopic approach could be the answer to Alzheimer’s biomarker detection
Despite a large research effort in recent decades, early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains challenging. AD biomarkers have proven invaluable, but we still need a sensitive and cost-effective method to detect them. Now, researchers have shown that fiber-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (FERS) could help overcome the limitations of traditional spectroscopic methods and enable reliable detection of amyloid β-peptide – a major AD biomarker (1).
The approach involves integrating a hollow-core photonic crystal fiber with conventional Raman spectroscopy and coupling this to surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. This enabled the researchers to amplify the weak biomarker Raman signal more than 200-fold. Further research is planned, but the approach takes us one step closer to early AD diagnosis.
- PJ Eravuchira et al., J Biomed Optics, 25, 077001 (2020). DOI: 10.1117/1.JBO.25.7.077001
By the time I finished my degree in Microbiology I had come to one conclusion – I did not want to work in a lab. Instead, I decided to move to the south of Spain to teach English. After two brilliant years, I realized that I missed science, and what I really enjoyed was communicating scientific ideas – whether that be to four-year-olds or mature professionals. On returning to England I landed a role in science writing and found it combined my passions perfectly. Now at Texere, I get to hone these skills every day by writing about the latest research in an exciting, creative way.
