Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Probing Trapped Extracellular Vesicles By Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy, Lauren Kaufman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are released by nearly all cell types within the human body and have been found to play important biological roles including cell-to-cell communication, apoptosis and tissue repair. Lacking cellular machinery, these nano-sized vesicles carry functional proteins and nucleic acids from their parent cells, providing insight into biomarkers present in healthy, cancerous and diseased cells. EVs may be isolated from biofluids such as from blood or urine. Their detection and characterization holds extreme potential in developing less invasive disease detection and treatment methods.

In this work, we propose use of lithographic techniques to fabricate platforms to allow for …

The Detection Of Cocaine In Oral Fluid Using Ultraviolet Resonance Raman Spectroscopy, Yasmine Ahmed

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Drug abuse has become a worldwide epidemic and is correlated to various serious health problems as well as increased rates of crime; thus, detecting and quantifying cocaine in oral fluid is of significant importance for practical forensics. To date, mainly destructive methods or biochemical tests have been used, while spectroscopic methods were only applied to pretreated samples. In this study, the possibility of using Raman spectroscopy to detect cocaine in oral fluid without pretreatment of samples was investigated. It was found that normal Raman spectroscopy at an excitation wavelength of 407 nm produced no cocaine signal while use of Raman …

Differentiation Of Potential False Positives From Human Saliva Using Raman Spectroscopy For Forensic Purposes, Selina Casadei

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Traces of body fluids can be found at a crime scene. Being able to identify and differentiate the body fluids while preserving DNA is fundamentally important for forensic applications. Saliva is an important body fluid that can be found on bite marks, cigarette butts, and more, being an excellent source for DNA extraction. Current tests for saliva and other body fluids are destructive and body fluid specific, and are prone to false positives. Our laboratory has developed a universal method for identification of all main body fluids; saliva, semen, sweat, peripheral blood, and vaginal fluid, using Raman spectroscopy combined with …