Invited Speaker - Halina Abramczyk (Poland)
| From femtosecond dynamics at the molecular level to breast tissue diagnosis by Raman spectroscopy |
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| H. Abramczyk*+, I. Placek* , B. Brożek – Płuska*, J. Sumacki*, Z. Morawiec++, M. Tazbir++ | ||
| *Institute of Applied Radiation Chemistry, Laboratory of Laser Molecular Spectroscopy, Technical University of Łódź, The Faculty of Chemistry, Poland, 93-590 Lodz, Wroblewskiego 15, phone: (+ 48 42) 631-31-88, 631-31-75, email:abramczy@mitr.p.lodz.pl,+ Max-Born-Institute, Max-Born-Str. 2A, 12489 Berlin, Germany email:abramczy@mbi-berlin.de, ++Kopernik Hospital, Oncology Ward, Lodz, Poland | ||
| Abstract | ||
| Life and disease are incredibly complex biochemical processes that occur in molecules, macromolecular structures, cells, and tissues. On the molecular level one can notice, however, that the basic mechanisms of living matter are a manifestation of just a few essential factors. One of them is the mechanism of photostability. Moreover, there is a common agreement that photoselection is one of the most important factors determining the evolution of life on the Earth at the early stages of high exposure to harmful UV radiation due to lack of the protective ozone layer. The same factors seem to decide about the health-disease balance in living creatures. Molecular structures responsible for harvesting of the solar energy must be photostable and resistant to photo-induced chemical changes. If the photostability protection and reparation mechanisms fail to any reason the processes that drive the normal tissue into abnormal one are strongly enhanced leading to the symptoms of disease. To answer the questions about the photostability we have to understand mechanisms of energy dissipation upon an optical excitation. There is a common agreement that such channels are provided by special features of the potential energy surfaces called sometimes the conical intersections. Some time ago we proposed the mechanism that leads to intersection (or decrease in the energy difference) of excited-state potential energy surface with the ground state. The mechanism is related to the coupling between the excited state (electronic or vibrational) and the vibrational modes. This mechanism leads to very fast and effective channel of radiationless energy dissipation of optical excitation. We provided spectroscopic evidence that the proposed mechanism seems to be universal both for simple species such as solvated electrons, H-bond systems, and biologically important proteins such as bacteriorhodopsin [1] as well as for electron transfer processes in photodynamic photosensitizers. Recently we have presented the results on the normal and malignant breast tissue by Raman spectroscopy. The results support the importance of photostability for the health-disease processes [2]. This paper presents new biological tissue results based on Raman spectroscopy and demonstrates its power as diagnostic tool with the key advantage in breast cancer research. The results presented here demonstrate the ability of Raman spectroscopy to accurately characterize cancer tissue and distinguish between normal, malignant and benign types. To the best of our knowledge, this paper is one of the most statistically reliable reports (70 patients) on Raman spectroscopy-based diagnosis of breast cancers among the world women population. | ||
| [1] | H. Abramczyk: Femtosecond primary events in bacteriorhodopsin, J. Chem. Phys. 120 (2004) 11120-11132. | |
| [2] | H. Abramczyk, B. Brożek-Płuska, K.Kurczewski, Z. Morawiec, M.Tazbir: From femtosecond dynamics to breast tissue diagnosis by Raman spectroscopy and Raman Imaging, ISRPS Bulletin 20 (2008) 37. | |
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Acknowledgment |
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