The Resilience and Limitations of Near Infrared Excitation Raman Spectroscopy

The first two parts of our conversation with Dmitry Kurouski, who is an Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, focused on the talk that he delivered at Pittcon 2026. Kurouski’s talk, which took place on Sunday March 8^th and was titled, “Near Infrared Excitation Raman Spectroscopic Analysis of Dyes Present on Fabric,” highlighted some of the latest research that his laboratory group has done in forensic analysis.¹

Pittcon 2026 offered a good forum to share this research. Bringing together experts in separation science and spectroscopy, along with instrument vendors and other industry professionals, Pittcon served as an ideal forum for sharing scientific research. This year’s conference took place in San Antonio, Texas, the seventh-largest city in the United States and home of the Alamo and the Riverwalk.

Kurouski’s research group at Texas A&M University focuses their efforts in a few research subjects. Some of the projects the team has worked on include Raman-based plant disease diagnostics, developing nano-infrared spectroscopy to characterize plant waxes and amyloids, and forensic analysis.²

At the conference, we focused our conversation on the work Kurouski’s laboratory is doing in forensic analysis. In the first part of our conversation with Kurouski, we asked him about the the benefits of using near-infrared excitation Raman spectroscopy (NieRS). Kurouski explained why NIeRS is a better technique than traditional HPLC methods for analyzing forensic dyes.

In the second part of our conversation with Kurouski, we focused on NieRS and how it can be coupled with partial least squares–discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) to achieve high dye identification accuracy even on fabrics contaminated with body fluids.

In this video clip, Kurouski discusses the limitations of near-infrared excitation Raman spectroscopy (NieRS).

Spectroscopy will be continuing to provide coverage of the Pittcon 2026 conference on an ongoing basis as we report back from San Antonio. You can stay up to date with our latest coverage of the Pittcon 2026 conference here.

References

1. Pittcon, Near Infrared Excitation Raman Spectroscopic Analysis of Dyes Present on Fabric. Pittcon.org. Available at: https://app.swapcard.com/event/pittcon-2026/planning/UGxhbm5pbmdfNDMxNzU3MA== (accessed 2026-03-15).
2. Texas A&M University, Dmitry Kurouski. TAMU.edu. Available at: https://bcbp.tamu.edu/people/kurouski-dmitry/ (accessed 2026-03-16).