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Emmanuel Lalla of York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, as well as his co-authors, recently presented an in-depth characterization of a set of samples collected during a 28-day Mars analog mission conducted by the Austrian Space Forum in the Dhofar region of Oman. Lalla spoke to Spectroscopy about this research, as well as how various methods of spectroscopic analysis can complement each other in analysis.

Combined Spectroscopic Analysis of Terrestrial Analogs from a Simulated Astronaut Mission Using the Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) Raman Sensor

Jerome Workman Jr. serves on the Editorial Advisory Board of Spectroscopy and is currently with Unity Scientific LLC. He is also an adjunct professor at Liberty University and U.S. National University. He can be reached at jworkman04@gsb.columbia.edu.

Katsumasa Fujita, a professor of applied physics at Osaka University, has been working to improve techniques for imaging biological samples using spontaneous Raman scattering.

Advances in Spontaneous Raman Scattering for Biological and Chemical Imaging in Cells and Tissues

Salvatore La Cavera III and his colleagues in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham, in Nottingham, United Kingdom have developed a novel measurement system consisting of two ultrafast lasers that excite and detect high-frequency ultrasound from a nano-transducer fabricated onto the tip of a single-mode optical fiber. 

Phonon Imaging in 3D with a Fiber Probe

Zac Schultz of The Ohio State University and his team used tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) with gold nanostars to investigate chemical reactions involved in protein–ligand binding. He recently spoke with Spectroscopy about his findings.

Investigating Protein Receptors and Other Biomolecules Using SERS and TERS

Bhavya Sharma is the winner of the 2021 Emerging Leader in Molecular Spectroscopy Award. We recently interviewed her about her work conducting research to detect active and important biomolecules related to hormone regulation, neurological health, and disease diagnosis.

Exploring Neurochemistry Using Raman Spectroscopy

Mark Meyerhoff has been exploring chemical sensors for biomedical applications. Because of his work, Meyerhoff has been awarded the 2021 ANACHEM award. Meyerhoff spoke to us about his work, his career, and what being presented this award at this fall’s SciX event means to him.

Developing Electrochemical and Optical Sensors to Measure Analytes in Physiological Samples

Roy Goodacre, a professor of biological chemistry at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom, first used SERS to achieve whole-organism fingerprinting of bacteria and then explored SERS in a variety of other applications, including within biotechnology, disease diagnostics, quantitative detection, imaging, food security, and more. Goodacre is the 2021 winner of the Charles Mann Award for Applied Raman Spectroscopy. This interview is part of an ongoing series of interviews with the winners of awards that are presented at the annual SciX conference.

Quantitative Analysis Using Surface-enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS): Roy Goodacre, the 2021 winner of the Charles Mann Award for Applied Raman Spectroscopy

Professor Rohit Bhargava and his team at the University of Illinois, where they have established the Cancer Center at Illinois, are advancing research in tumor microenvironments, using techniques such as high-definition Fourier transform infrared (HD-FT-IR) coupled with machine learning. We recently spoke to Bhargava about this work. 

High-Definition Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging of the Tumor Microenvironment

Analytical chemists are continually striving to advance techniques to make it possible to observe and measure matter and processes at smaller and smaller scales. Professor Vartkess Ara Apkarian and his team at the University of California, Irvine have made a significant breakthrough in this quest: They have recorded the Raman spectrum of a single azobenzene thiol molecule. The approach, which breaks common tenets about surface-enhanced Raman scattering/spectroscopy (SERS) and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS), involved imaging an isolated azobenzene thiol molecule on an atomically flat gold surface, then picking it up and recording its Raman spectrum using an electrochemically etched silver tip, in an ultrahigh vacuum cryogenic scanning tunneling microscope. For the resulting paper detailing the effort [1], Apkarian and his associates are the 2021 recipients of the William F. Meggers Award, given annually by the Society for Applied Spectroscopy to the authors of the outstanding paper appearing in the journal Applied Spectroscopy. We spoke to Apkarian about this research, and what being awarded this honor means to him and his team. This interview is part of an ongoing series with the winners of awards that are presented at the annual SciX conference. The award will be presented to Apkarian at this fall’s event, which will be held in person in Providence, Rhode Island, September 28–October 1.

Recording the Raman Spectrum of a Single Molecule 

Uwe Karst of the University of Münster in Germany explains the use of laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) imaging to provide spatially resolved quantification of trace elements in biological samples.

Spectroscopy Interviews