Shedding the Light on Diseases

 Infrared light causes all molecules to undergo vibrations, even the molecules in your body. Keeping this in mind, you will not be surprised to learn that chemists are trying to monitor various disease processes by using infrared spectroscopic methods. When biological material such as human tissue undergoes a transformation that takes it from healthy to diseased, there are accompanying changes in some of the molecules that make up the tissue. This means that the biomolecules associated with a disease are often different in some ways to the biomolecules associated with healthy tissue of the same type. The differences in the biomolecules cause them to give rise to different infrared spectroscopic fingerprints. So, by examining healthy and abnormal tissues with infrared (IR) spectroscopy, chemists are able to spot discrepancies between healthy and diseased biological material at a molecular level. With further research in this area, chemists may one day develop IR spectroscopic methods which enable them to detect these transformations at such an early stage that they will find themselves witnessing the onset of a disease.

 This is exactly what one group of researchers at the National Research Council of Canada's Institute for Biodiagnos-tics (IBD) in Winnipeg, Manitoba has been trying to do. (Check out their website at http://www.ibd.nrc.ca/spectroscopy/) This team of scientists have received a lot of attention lately for their work in an area of research known as Medical Infrared Spectroscopy, a field of study that is concerned with discovering ways in which IR spectroscopy can be used beneficially for healthcare. Scientists in the Spectroscopy Division of IBD have been spending their time investigating the interaction of infrared radiation with biomolecules.

Dr. Henry Mantsch heads the Spectroscopy Division of IBD. Dr. Mantsch and his team of researchers have been monitoring various diseases at the molecular level by interpreting the infrared spectra of human tissue. Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis are neurological disorders that have devastating effects. Researchers at IBD have discovered features that are characteristic of these disorders by using IR spectroscopy to inspect various diseased human tissues. There is no known cure for either disease at present, but there is some evidence which suggests that early treatment of Alzheimer's disease succeeds in slowing its progress. The findings to date have given researchers every reason to believe that the use of IR spectroscopy may one day lead to the diagnosis of Alzheimer's at the onset of the disease. In fact, IR spectroscopy shows such promise in this area that other researchers, like Dr. Kathy Gough from the Department of Chemistry, The University of Manitoba, are in on the action. Dr. Gough would like to know what IR spectroscopy can tell her about the molecular nature of Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Gough, who is an affiliated scientist with IBD, is also currently supervising research there that involves the use of IR spectroscopy to monitor multiple sclerosis. (You can check out Dr. Gough's website at http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/science/chemistry/staff/staff_de/gough.html)

Infrared spectroscopy has also been revealing features that are characteristic of malignant tumours before symptoms of the cancer become apparent. For example, Dr. Mantsch and his team have used IR spectroscopy to study breast cancer. In addition, IR spectroscopy is helping scientists to detect leukemia earlier than ever before and may eventually improve the reliability of PAP smear tests _ tests that are currently used to detect cervical cancer. Future use of IR spectroscopic methodsin this capacity could also eliminate the need for the invasive methods, like surgery and blood tests, which are currently required to diagnose cancer.

Scientists at the IBD have also looked at how IR light interacts with biofluids to yield valuable information for analytical and diagnostic purposes. Infrared technology is being used for the diagnostic evaluation of biofluids like amniotic fluid, saliva, and synovial fluid from arthritic joints. The research conducted in this area will benefit arthritis patients and help to monitor fetal lung development in high_risk pregnancies. Furthermore, work being done with the infrared analysis of biofluids may one day revolutionize clinical chemistry. Researchers have developed methods that use IR light to acquire vast amounts of information about the level of substances in biofluids with one simple and quick measurement. This may not sound impressive at first, but obtaining information like this in the conventional way is messy and typically requires numerous time_consuming measurements. At this point, you may think that researchers at the IBD have exhausted all the possibilities of IR spectroscopy! But yet another group in the Spectroscopy Division has been using IR light to study skin damage as a result of excessive exposure to the sun. Dr. Sowa and his team of researchers have been using IR light to monitor tissue physiology. Thanks to their work an infrared spectrometer may one day be routinely used by medical doctors to assess whether a skin graft has been accepted by the treated area within minutes. Presently, this determination can take days or even weeks which greatly increases the uncertainty of the success of any particular grafting procedure.

If reading about vibrating molecules and current research in medical infrared spectroscopy has peaked your interest, you'll be pleased to hear that there are many good employment opportunities for people with a background in this subject area. A basic degree in chemistry with the emphasis in vibrational spectroscopy could land you a job in industry as an on_line control person. A Ph.D. spectroscopist, on the other hand, would be involved in projects like developing new instrumentation that is capable of imaging objects as diverse as human tissue and car bumpers.