1. Innovative Sample Preparation Protocols for Infrared Spectroscopy
*First comparative study of low-cost substrates (aluminum foil, stainless steel, silicon wafers, Kevley slides, cover glass) for infrared spectroscopy of biofluids (plasma, saliva, platelets).
*Traditional IR studies often rely on expensive and fragile substrates like CaF2; your work breaks new ground by showing these affordable alternatives perform comparably, with broader applicability and lower cost.
*The protocol also reduces instrument time by using pre-dried (air or freeze-dried) samples rather than drop deposition directly on the ATR crystal — an efficiency gain not previously demonstrated systematically.
*This contribution is immediately actionable and broadly beneficial for researchers using vibrational spectroscopy in biomedicine.
2. Integration of Multimodal Analysis on Single Substrate
*Demonstrated that Silicon wafers are compatible with both infrared spectroscopy and X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) — enabling multimodal analysis on the same sample.
*This advancement allows researchers to combine molecular (vibrational) and elemental data, giving richer insights without sample loss — a novel and valuable methodology in biofluid analysis.
3. New Insights into Platelet Cryopreservation and Neurodegeneration Biomarkers
*Revealed that cryopreservation affects platelet biochemistry, particularly over time after thawing, altering macromolecular composition in ways that could affect diagnostic utility.
*This study goes beyond current literature, which has paid limited attention to how storage methods impact the molecular profile of platelets — especially in the context of biomarkers like TDP-43 relevant to ALS and FTD.
*Demonstrated the time-dependent degradation or alteration of biomolecules, a factor crucial for biobanking protocols and diagnostic reliability.
4. Spectroscopic Identification of Lipid Changes in Brain Lesions
*Identified a significant decrease in lipid content in lesion regions of the brain using vibrational spectroscopy — findings consistent with mass spectrometry results and indicative of lipid peroxidation.
*These results provide new mechanistic evidence supporting the hypothesis that demyelination in neurodegenerative disease may be reversed by restoring lipid content/myelination — an idea not fully explored in IR spectroscopy before.
*This offers a potential spectroscopic biomarker for neurodegeneration progression and treatment monitoring.
5. Diagnostic Differentiation Using IR and Elemental Spectroscopy
*Successfully demonstrated clear PCA-based discrimination between plasma samples from FTD patients and controls using multiple spectroscopic techniques (ATR, NIR, TXRF) in a trial set that needs to be tested at higher numbers.
*Although based on a small sample set, this work lays the groundwork for non-invasive, label-free diagnostics, and advances the field toward objective spectral biomarkers.
