Practical Advice for Researchers Working with SERS Assays

In this “Pathways in Spectroscopy” clip, Sian Sloan-Dennison, a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, offers on the several areas that researchers can address in biological and clinical analysis. In particular, Sloan-Dennison discusses that researchers in particular need to establish a clear vision for how their surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) assay is going to be used. The main reason for this is because the type of SERS assay being developed dictates the research path one should take, as well as the storage conditions for their assay.

Spectroscopy: When it comes to biological and clinical analysis, what are the current skill gaps that young researchers can help address?

Sian Sloan-Dennison: One thing you have to consider is the SERS assay you're building, or your random probe that you're designing, is where it is going to be used. Is it going to be an early diagnostics tool, or is it going to be for patients to use themselves? This can really like dictate the path of your research. And for example, if you're building a SERS assay and you're relying on all your reagents to be stored in the fridge, that sometimes isn't possible. Sometimes, you have to have your assay be stored at room temperature. So that may start making you think, okay, how do I make this stable? I need to start thinking on the design. And this can kind of like straight away. You can kind of look at the problems in your research start off with so it doesn't get so far down the line that you might have made a fantastic series assay, but it can never go anywhere, because you have to keep things in -80, where you just can't keep that -80 in the clinical ones.

This clip is part of our conversation with Sloan-Dennison. Our conversation with Sloan-Dennison was part of our coverage of the 2026 Spring SciX conference. You can view our coverage of this conference here.

References

1. Wetzel, W.; Spectroscopy Staff. Previewing Spring SciX 2026. Spectroscopy. Available at: https://www.spectroscopyonline.com/view/previewing-spring-scix-2026 (accessed 2026-05-06).
2. Sloan-Dennison, S. Droplets to Diagnosis: Digital Microfluidic SERS Detection of microRNA-122. Presented at Spring SciX, Exeter, United Kingdom, 2026. Available at: https://rapide-diagnostics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Spring-SciX-Programme.pdf