Bioanalytical and biophysical spectroscopic methods & applications

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Research in my lab focuses on bioanalytical methods and applications based mainly on Raman spectroscopy (RS) and ultraviolet resonance Raman spectroscopy (UVRRS).  These are optical inelastic scattering techniques that can be used to determine concentrations and conformations of biomolecules under a wide range of environmental & solution conditions.  UVRRS offers an unrivaled combination of sensitivity, selectivity and background rejection needed to investigate complex biological and/or biochemical systems.  We developed the world's first fiber-optic-linked UVRRS system for remote and in situ spectroscopy, enabling the power of UVRRS to be exploited in previously inaccessible environments and applications.  This technology is uniquely suited for investigating biomolecules in their native states or closed/experimentally manipulated environments using relatively dilute, microliter-volume samples.  The proposal describes my future research activities in two related directions:  (1) The first concerns developing new hardware and software based methods/technologies.  Work on 'hardware' technologies includes engineering specialized fiber-optic probes and instrumentation for UVRRS; 'software' based methods include signal processing and analysis tools to aid in extracting and interpreting the rich information contained in the Raman scattering signal from biomolecules.  Together, these methods/technologies will enable new applications involving, for example, analyses in complex media, measuring biochemical dynamics, remote (e.g., environmental) monitoring, experiments in conjunction with other instrumentation (e.g., microfluidic systems, thermal cyclers, calorimeters).  (2) The second direction concerns pursuing biotechnology applications enabled by the new technologies.  One of the many applications that we plan to pursue involves further structural investigations of members of an important family of enzymes (dioxygenases) that some bacteria use to degrade phenolic compounds such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the environment.  One of the goals of this work is to enable the development of engineered variants of enzymes from this family that can be used for bioremediation of polluted lands and forests.