Bone Quality Test Taps Toenail Clippings
A professor of biomedical materials engineering science at the Inamori School of Engineering at Alfred University (Alfred, NY), has done research showing that the risk of bone loss associated with osteoporosis can be predicted using a patient?s toenail clipping and Raman spectroscopy.
Mark Towler, a professor of biomedical materials engineering science at the Inamori School of Engineering at Alfred University (Alfred, NY), has done research showing that the risk of bone loss associated with osteoporosis can be predicted using a patient’s toenail clipping. Towler’s test, the Bone Quality Test (BQT) uses Raman spectroscopy done at the point-of-care.
The BQT involves aiming a 785 nm laser beam with power up to 400 mW at a toenail clipping from a subject. The information recorded from the laser beam evaluates the presence of certain proteins in the nail clipping, measuring the quality of the protein phase of the subject’s bones.
Towler noticed that osteoporosis patients saw improved strength and appearance in their nails after taking medication for osteoporosis. Raman spectroscopy analyses showed differences in the protein structures between the nails of healthy patients and those with osteoporosis.
Crescent Diagnostics (Dublin, Ireland), which Towler co-founded in 2004, hopes to launch the BQT test within a year in Europe and expand into the U.S. market in the next 18 months, pending U.S. FDA approval.
Getting accurate IR spectra on monolayer of molecules
April 18th 2024Creating uniform and repeatable monolayers is incredibly important for both scientific pursuits as well as the manufacturing of products in semiconductor, biotechnology, and. other industries. However, measuring monolayers and functionalized surfaces directly is. difficult, and many rely on a variety of characterization techniques that when used together can provide some degree of confidence. By combining non-contact atomic force microscopy (AFM) and IR spectroscopy, IR PiFM provides sensitive and accurate analysis of sub-monolayer of molecules without the concern of tip-sample cross contamination. Dr. Sung Park, Molecular Vista, joined Spectroscopy to provide insights on how IR PiFM can acquire IR signature of monolayer films due to its unique implementation.
