Brillouin microscopy & Raman spectroscopy: Emerging techniques for improved biomedical and clinical research

Join this exclusive double feature if you are interested in finding out how Brillouin microscopy and Raman spectroscopy techniques can revolutionize your biophysical and biochemical analyses for life sciences, biomedical, and clinical diagnostic applications.

Emerging Brillouin microscopy in biomedical and life sciences

Brillouin light scattering (BLS) is a powerful technique that is used to determine sample elastic properties by enabling the spectral analysis of laser light scattered off thermally driven acoustic waves or phonons. In this presentation, Dr. Francesca Palombo will review the recent advances in BLS microscopy for use in biophysical studies and outline the challenges and opportunities posed by this emerging technique in regard to the interpretation and uniqueness of the optical signals obtained from acoustic phonons at gigahertz frequency.

Key learning objectives:

  • Understand the basics of Brillouin light scattering
  • Explore the hurdles in technical implementation
  • Enable collaborative efforts to further advance instrument development and biomedical applications

Clinical Raman spectroscopy: A potential panacea (or just a complement to current clinical diagnostics)?

Raman spectroscopy can provide a rapid, reproducible, and non-destructive pathological measure of disease and shows promise as a prognostic indicator of likely patient outcomes in a number of conditions. Raman spectroscopic tools can be utilized in the pathology lab to analyze cells, tissues, and fluids, applied at the point of care to provide real-time intraoperative information, and finally, it can be applied to open surgical fields with help from smart Raman needles or deep Raman approaches. Whilst Raman spectroscopy shows great promise in the clinical diagnostics field, it is still unclear whether Raman will become the new gold standard for diagnosis or remain a complementary technique for difficult cases. In this presentation, Prof. Nick Stone will share recent work in translating Raman to the clinic and discuss its utility as a clinical tool.

Key learning objectives:

  • Understand the principles of biomedical Raman spectroscopy
  • Explore methods of deep Raman sampling in tissues (needle probes and spatially offset Raman)
  • Hear clinical perspectives of novel Raman approaches

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