Vibrational spectroscopy of biological systems at the micro and nano level - RERS, SERS, TERS & AFM-IR

Raman spectroscopy is an excellent tool for interrogating biomolecules or biological systems in natural environments because water is such a weak Raman scatterer. This is particularly the case when there are chromophoric materials such as hemes, chlorophyll, carotenes that are strong scatterers or give rise to resonance Raman. Over a number of years we have applied Raman, Resonance Raman, Surface Enhanced Raman and Tip enhanced Raman spectroscopies to live cells such as erythrocytes in order to understand and develop probes for disease states. A number of these studies will be used to highlight instrumental and sampling techniques and data analysis in Raman spectroscopy of biosystems. Infrared spectroscopy also has a role, especially nano-IR and a study of DNA methylation will be used to show the power of nano-IR.