Infrared Applications for Safe and Healthy Living - Dr. Perera

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​​Dr. Unil Perera
Regents’ Professor of Physics
Georgia State University

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Friday, January 29th, 10 am (PST) 

​Infrared detectors and imaging systems are becoming increasingly important in a diverse range of astronomic, military, and civilian applications. This field has gained significant attention while incorporating various materials and architectures into detector designs with a strong focus on applicability into clinical domains. Dr. Perera will discuss recent detector structures, and his latest work on disease detection. Biomedical applications of infrared include an exploration of an Affordable, Sensitive, Specific, User-friendly, Rapid, Equipment-free, and Deliverable (ASSURED) diagnostic regimen and testing its clinical feasibility for inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) and cancer screening. A study using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in attenuated total reflectance (ATR) sampling mode analyzed  body fluids in order to identify reproducible,  stable,  and statistically significant differences  in spectral signatures of the IR absorbance spectra between the control and disease samples. These results show that serum samples can be used to detect the biochemical changes induced by these diseases. 

Image from https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-17027-4

Image from https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-17027-4

​Student’s t-test (two-tailed unequal variance) p-values of absorbance. Discriminatory region for lymphoma with higher significance (p < 0.05) are amide I of protein, amide II of protein, C-H bends of CH3/CH2 groups in α- and β- anomers, asymmetric phosphate I, and carbohydrates with predominant contributions nucleic acids (DNA/RNA via PO2 − stretches). Discriminatory regions of melanoma are amide I and carbohydrates with predominant contributions of nucleic acids.

Plots of the protein secondary structures (α-helix, β-sheet) and their ratio. (a) Quantified integral (area covered) values of α-helix components are less for tumorous cases compared to control. (b) Integral values of β-sheet components are higher for tumorous cases compared to control