Raman spectroscopy for clinical-level detection of heparin in serum by partial least-squares analysis.

Heparin is the most widely used anti-coagulant for the prevention of blood clots in patients undergoing certain types of surgeries including open heart surgeries and dialysis. The precise monitoring of heparin amount in patients' blood is crucial for reducing the morbidity and mortality in surgical environments. Based upon these considerations, we have used Raman spectroscopy in conjunction with partial least squares (PLS) analysis to measure heparin concentration at clinical level which is less than 10 United States Pharmacopeia (USP) in serum. The PLS calibration model was constructed from the Raman spectra of different concentrations of heparin in serum. It showed a high coefficient of determination (R2>0.91) between the spectral data and heparin level in serum along with a low root mean square error of prediction ~4 USP/ml. It enabled the detection of extremely low concentrations of heparin in serum (~8 USP/ml) as desirable in clinical environment. The proposed optical method has the potential of being implemented as the point-of-care testing procedure during surgeries, where the interest is to rapidly monitor low concentrations of heparin in patient's blood.

Monitoring of heparin concentration in serum by Raman spectroscopy within hollow core photonic crystal fiber.

The feasibility of using hollow core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF) in conjunction with Raman spectroscopy has been explored for real time monitoring of heparin concentration in serum. Heparin is an important blood anti-coagulant whose precise monitoring and controlling in patients undergoing cardiac surgery and dialysis is of utmost importance. Our method of heparin monitoring offers a novel alternative to existing clinical procedures in terms of accuracy, response time and sample volume. The optical design configuration simply involves a 785-nm laser diode whose light is coupled into HC-PCF filled with heparin-serum mixtures. By non-selectively filling HC-PCF, a strong modal field overlap is obtained. Consequently, an enhanced Raman signal (>90 times) is obtained from various heparin-serum mixtures filled HC-PCFs compared to its bulk counterpart (cuvette). The present scheme has the potential to serve as a 'generic biosensing tool' for diagnosing a wide range of biological samples.

An integrated laser Raman optical sensor for fast detection of nitrogen and oxygen in a cryogenic mixture.

An integrated fiber optic Raman sensor was designed for real-time, nonintrusive detection of liquid nitrogen (LN(2)) in liquid oxygen (LO(2)) at high pressures and high flow rates. This was intended to monitor the quality of LO(2) in oxidizer feed lines during the ground testing of rocket engines. Various issues related to optical diagnosis of cryogenic fluids (LN(2)/LO(2)) in supercritical environment of rocket engine test facility, such as fluorescence from impurity in optical window of feed line, signal-noise ratio, and fast data acquisition time, etc., are well addressed. The integrated sensor employed a frequency doubled 532-nm continuous wave Nd:YAG laser as an excitation light source. The other optical components included were InPhotonics Raman probes, spectrometers, and photomultiplier tubes (PMTs). The spectrometer was used to collect the Raman spectrum of LN(2) and LO(2). The PMT detection unit was integrated with home-built LABVIEW software for fast monitoring of concentration ratios LN(2) and LO(2). Prior to designing an integrated sensor system, its optical components were also tested with gaseous nitrogen (GN(2)) and oxygen (GO(2)).

Fiber optic Raman sensor to monitor the concentration ratio of nitrogen and oxygen in a cryogenic mixture.

A spontaneous Raman scattering optical fiber sensor was developed for a specific need of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for long-term detection and monitoring of the purity of liquid oxygen (LO(2)) in the oxidizer feed line during ground testing of rocket engines. The Raman peak intensity ratios for liquid nitrogen (LN(2)) and LO(2) with varied weight ratios (LN(2)/LO(2)) were analyzed for their applicability to impurity sensing. The study of the sensor performance with different excitation light sources has helped to design a miniaturized, cost-effective system for this application. The optimal system response time of this miniaturized sensor for LN(2)/LO(2) measurement was found to be in the range of a few seconds. It will need to be further reduced to the millisecond range for real-time, quantitative monitoring of the quality of cryogenic fluids in a harsh environment.