RaNT has first, big international showcase on scientific stage.
This week, Profs. Nick Stone and Pavel Matousek together with Drs. Priyanka Dey and Sara Mosca, joined over 1000 scientists at the Palm Springs Convention Centre for SciX2019: “The Great Scientific Exchange”.
RaNT does YMCA. Signature moves from the team, who now always travel in fours ready to bust this out on the dance floor! R (Pavel) | a (Sara) | N (Priyanka) | T (Nick). Photograph: Nick Stone
Delegates of this annual US conference, organised by the Federation of Analytical Chemistry and Spectroscopy Societies (FACCS), attended 3 talks by the RaNT team.
Nick was invited to give the first talk in a special session honouring Prof. Ishan Barman, the 2019 winner of Spectroscopy Magazine’s Emerging Scientist in Molecular Spectroscopy Award.
He updated the audience on the current state-of-the-art in surface enhanced spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SESORS), introducing the audience to the overall concept of RaNT via the technique that makes it possible.
Sara’s talk linked to the component of RaNT research that aims to detect and pinpoint the location of tumours deep inside the body without piercing the skin. She discussed her progress in using a combination of spatially offset and transmission Raman spectroscopies (SORS & TRS), to accurately measure the depth of a material cluster buried within biological tissue.
Her recent paper developing this research can be found here.
Priyanka’s talk expanded on the design and manufacture of the gold nanoparticles that will eventually form this target material cluster.
She explained the signal boosting potential of her unique ‘multi-tentacle’ assemblies, helping the RaNT technology see deeper into the body, and described why this nanoparticle design might perform well as a tumour killing heat generator – the basis of RaNT’s therapeutic element.
The subject of this talk was later published in this paper.
RaNT & Friends on the SciX2019 Red Carpet. Top row L-R: Nallala Jayakrupakar (BioSpec Exeter), X, Pavel Matousek, Sara Mosca, Renzo Vanna (CNR-IFN), Priyanka Dey, Kelly Curtis (DSTL), Martha Vardaki (UBC) & Adrian Ghita (BioSpec Exeter). Bottom row: Nick Stone. Photograph: Nick Stone
And the reward for all the hard sciencing!? A chance to meet up with old friends and colleagues, and party on the red carpet at A Night at the Oscars… featuring YMCA – RaNT style!
Read Nick's Conference Abstract
Developing Surface Enhanced Deep Raman Spectroscopy for Clinical Applications
Authors: Nick Stone, Ben Gardner, Priyanka Dey, Sara Mosca, Adrian Ghita, Martha Vardaki & Pavel Matousek
Surface enhanced spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SESORS) was first introduced at SciX a number of years ago. It involves the incorporation of nanoparticles (NP) and Raman reporters to provide a specific identification of its presence at a particular location. Combining reporter flavours to provide multiplexing is relatively trivial due to the narrow spectral bandwidth of the reporter Raman spectra. By also functionalizing the NP the localisation of specific targets can be achieved using either spatially offset Raman (SESORS) or transmission Raman (SETRS). Furthermore, local environmental properties of medium surrounding the NP can be probed, such as temperature (T-SESORS) and pH (pH-SESORS). This talk will summarise the current state of the art in this rapidly developing field.
Read Priyanka's Conference Abstract
Unique nano-assemblies built of “off-the-shelf” components for Raman theranostics
Authors: Priyanka Dey, Tanveer Tabish, Sara Mosca, Francesca Palombo, Pavel Matousek & Nick Stone
Theranostics has been a key research area in the past decade and is growing in importance as groups around the world are able to more effectively bridge diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Biomedical spectroscopy techniques, particularly Raman spectroscopy, which is non-invasive, radiation-free and minimally affected by the prominent presence of water in biological samples have become a natural choice for diagnostics. Since Raman signals are inherently low in intensity, employing plasmonic gold nano-assemblies and utilizing surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) resolves this limitation. Furthermore, combining SERS and spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (i.e. SESORS) aids detection from within deep-tissue. Thus, designing gold nano-assemblies for efficient SERS and high light-to-heat conversion is crucial towards realizing the goal of Raman theranostics. This becomes tricky when specialized “linker” molecules like organic molecules, DNA origamis, dendrimers or polymers need to be synthesized, in addition to, employing them in specific methodologies to form the nano-assembly morphologies.
We approach this by employing a commercially available polymer linking stabilized ‘core’ gold nanoparticles (NPs) with nanoparticles constituting the ‘tentacles’.. Devising a simple assembly process composed of converging parallel processes yields “multi-tentacle nano-assemblies”. Due to their unique morphology these nano-assemblies provide strong plasmonic coupling and high NIR absorbance (~60% of its VIS absorbance) extending across the entire “tissue-transparency window” from 650-1100 nm. We will present the methodology that allows the formation of such multi-tentacle nano-assemblies and how different nano-assembly structures with radically different absorbance profiles can be obtained by methodological tweaks. Importantly we will discuss our unique approach of forming the tentacles by exploiting polymer characteristics and the effect on intense plasmon-coupling. Our approach using commercial off-the-shelf components goes against popular beliefs which pre-requisites the use of specifically designed and synthesized linker molecules for nano-assembly formation. We further report their NIR-SERS activity employing multiple SERS labels and multiple-laser lines to demonstrate its versatility in potential Raman theranostic applications.
Read Sara's Conference Abstract
Spatially Offset and Transmission Raman Spectroscopy for Determination of Depth of Inclusion in Turbid Matrix
Authors: Sara Mosca, Priyanka Dey, Tanveer Tabish, Francesca Palombo, Nick Stone & Pavel Matousek
In many application areas, it is beneficial to identify both the chemical information on a buried layer or object in diffusely scattering matrix and to also identify its depth within it. For example, in a clinical environment, the identification and localisation of a cancer lesion within body in vivo could potentially facilitate more accurate diagnosis or improve the effectiveness of subsequent treatments.
We propose a novel approach for the prediction of the depth of a single buried object within a turbid medium combining Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy (SORS) and Transmission Raman Spectroscopy (TRS) and relying on differential attenuation of individual Raman bands brought about by the spectral variation of matrix absorption and scattering. The relative degree of the Raman band intensity changes is directly related to the path length of Raman photons travelling through the medium thereby encoding the information on the depth of the object within the matrix. Through a calibration procedure it was possible to predict the depth of a paracetamol inclusion within a turbid matrix consisting of polyethylene (PE) by monitoring the relative intensity of two Raman bands of paracetamol exhibiting differential absorption by the matrix. The approach was shown to be largely insensitive to variations of the amount of the inclusion (paracetamol) and to the overall thickness of the turbid matrix (PE) with a Root Mean Square Error of Prediction (RMSEP) maintained below 10% for the tested cases.
Our results validate the proposed approach as an effective tool for the non-invasive determination of depth of buried objects in turbid media with potential applications including determining noninvasively the depth of a lesion in cancer diagnosis in vivo.
