In today’s setting of biomolecular research, it is important that researchers have a large array of different tools at their disposal to further our understanding of the way in which biomolecules interact with each other. One tool that shows incredible promise in this aspect is Raman spectroscopy. What makes Raman spectroscopy special is its ability to provide detailed information at the molecular level of almost any form of sample, including aqueous(in water) samples, such as saliva, or other biological fluids; this is unlike other more widely used forms of atomic investigation such as infrared spectroscopy, which struggles with the interference of water in its signal. The work of this project is focused on investigating how Raman spectroscopy can be used to investigate biomolecules in aqueous and/or biological media, in our case for the detection of cancer biomarkers in saliva, as well as the effect of crowding on functional proteins. Based on the work already completed, the use of Raman spectroscopy seems promising, as it has provided clean spectra for both saliva samples for detection of cancer biomarkers, as well as for a number of amino acid and protein samples (proline, tryptophan, bovine serum albumin, and prolyl-tRNA synthetase) in the presence polyethylene glycol (PEG 8k) as a crowding agent. The preliminary results of our research will be presented.
