Summary of Research Programs

Biomedical Research and Medical Diagnosis

Micro-spectroscopy and spectroscopic chemical imaging has tremendous potential in the field of medicine and biomedical sciences and we have investigated, with some success, the former technique in the areas of cervical cancer diagnosis, brain cancer and matching for tissue transplantation through NHMRC grants and collaborations. We have expanded these studies into investigations of other forms of cancer (breast, colon etc), into the tissue and cell imaging arena and into the development of methodology for the application of the techniques to blood disorders such as leukemias, thalassemias and anemias through to the spectroscopy of blood plasma, red blood cells and lymphocytes. Research has also been directed to the in situ investigation of the fundamental chemical processes occurring in cells, eg. in live red blood cells where the haemoglobin is undergoing ligand exchange and also in malarial infected cells. This work has been supported through ARC grants from 2001-2011 and we have made considerable progress in following the chemical changes in live red blood cells infected with malaria and the action of drugs in such cells. We are also currently investigating the use of infrared and Raman signatures as a means of bio-assay, in particular immuno-assay, using either enhanced signals of the chemical makeup of the systems in question (Surface and Resonance Enhanced Raman spectroscopy, SERS, RERS) or with specific infrared and Raman markers. We have also developed instrumentation and accessories based around the imaging spectrometer systems to analyse multiple small samples and provide 3D molecular images.

Our focus is moving towards developing techniques to probe the chemistry of whole single live and live cells at the organelle level through synchrotron IR , tip enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) and nanoparticle assisted spectroscopy.