Ready for a Raman shift
Raman spectroscopy has been seen as a tool for physicists and chemists but Hayley Bennett finds it has the potential to cause a major shift in the way we do medicine
The Raman effect occurs because of molecular vibrations in the material that take energy from, or give it to, photons of light, causing a change in wavelength or colour. Importantly, the nature of that change is unique to the molecules inhabiting the material; it can be thought of as a chemical fingerprint. Because Raman spectroscopy can pick out very small chemical changes, it allows biomedical researchers to spot even minor fluctuations in the molecules associated with disease and categorise tissues according to whether they are healthy or not.