 Jürgen Popp, PhD Raman Spectroscopy for Clinical Diagnosis: Potentials and Limits Here, we report various examples of our latest results concerning the application of linear and nonlinear Raman microspectroscopy towards a more reliable medical diagnosis. First, the unique potential of Raman microspectroscopy for an online identification of microorganisms is highlighted. The rapid identification of pathogens based in their characteristic Raman fingerprint is of great relevance for an efficient medical diagnosis (e.g. rapid identification of pathogens in urine samples) or air- and soil monitoring (e.g. identification of anthrax endospores embedded in complex matrices). The implementation of Raman spectroscopy and optical traps in a microfluidic chip allows for Raman activated cell sorting which offers large potential for an automated classification of cells like e.g. circulating tumour cells. Besides single cells, the investigation of whole tissue sections like biopsy specimens by means of Raman- microspectroscopy aiming for an early disease diagnosis will be shown. Furthermore, first steps towards in-vivo Raman spectroscopy utilizing novel Raman fiber probes for an intravascular monitoring of the artheriosclerotic plaque in living rabbits will be presented. The rather long acquisition times of Raman imaging can be reduced by utilizing non-linear Raman approaches like CARS (coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering). In order to improve the diagnostic result, CARS microscopy can be easily combined with second harmonic generation (SHG) and two-photon fluorescence (TPF) microscopy The diagnostics potential of a compact CARS/SHG/TPF multimodal microscope as compared to conventional histopathological images will be shown for the examples of atherosclerosis and cancer. Short Biography: Professor Popp studied chemistry at the Universities of Erlangen and Wuerzburg. After his PhD in Chemistry, he joined Yale University for postdoctoral work. He subsequently returned to Wuerzburg University where he finished his habilitation in 2002. Since 2002 he holds a chair for Physical Chemistry at the Friedrich-Schiller University, Jena. Furthermore, since 2006, he is the Scientific Director of the Institute of Photonic Technology, Jena. His research interests are mainly concerned with biophotonics. In particular, the development and application of innovative Raman techniques for biomedical diagnostics as well as environmental and food analysis. He has published more than 400 journal papers and is a fellow of SAS and SPIE. In 2012 he received an honorary doctor’s degree at Babes- Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania and in 2013 was awarded by the Robert Kellner Lecture. Thursday, January 30, 2014 Seminar: 4:00 PM in 1005 GBSF Reception: 5:15 PM |
