Shining light on heart disease

Atherosclerosis is a disease of the arteries leading to myocardial infarction and stroke. The
development of innovative approaches for the molecular imaging of inflammation in atherosclerosis
would be key to improve diagnosis and treatment. Surface Enhancement Raman Spectroscopy
(SERS) is developing as an effective imaging optical modality in biomedicine. The aim of the
proposal is to develop SERS-based system to measure vascular inflammation. We will use metallic
nanoparticles (NPs), which possess the ability to recognise inflammatory markers, as imaging probes
in in vitro vascular cell cultures. When a light source is shone on these NPs, they can be detected by
SERS.