Photoacoustic spectroscopy as a non-invasive method for in-vivo protein detection and identification

Protein assemblies or misfolded proteins are related to various diseases such as Alzheimer?s disease, type II diabetes, Parkinson?s disease and more, and their in-vivo detection is important for understanding these disorders and for developing drugs and treatments for mitigating them. In this study we propose to use photoacoustic spectroscopy (PAS) for in-vivo detection and identification of these pathogenic proteins. Since PAS does not require detection of transmitted beam, it is particularly suitable for in-vivo applications. As a preliminary verification of the viability of this approach we have used PAS for in-vitro characterization of the absorption spectra of various protein solutions in both the deep-UV and the near-IR spectral ranges. The results were compared with spectra measured by conventional absorption spectroscopy.