Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

Tornado Spectral Systems (Toronto, ON) was founded to invent and commercialize novel optical technologiesx000D
for applications in the medical and industrial sectors. Their primary optical method is a technique called Ramanx000D
spectroscopy, which uses a laser beam to perform non-destructive real-time measurements of chemicalx000D
mixtures. Tornado's proprietary optical designs enable their Raman analyzers to be 10x to 30x more powerfulx000D
than the current state of the art, so quantitative Raman measurements can be made more quickly, morex000D
sensitively, or more accurately than with conventional optical configurations. However, Tornado's technologyx000D
is only one part of the solution in the case of analysis of blood samples. Due to its chemical and cellularx000D
structure, blood absorbs much of the laser energy rather than scattering the wavelength-shifted Raman photonsx000D
which provide chemical information. This fact has two main implications: (1) the Raman signal from bloodx000D
will be weaker than for most other types of chemical samples, and (2) the incident laser power must be keptx000D
low to avoid heating and damaging the blood sample, and lower laser power produces even weaker Ramanx000D
signal. Since blood analysis is often looking for very subtle changes in the Raman spectrum, both of thesex000D
factors can severely limit the applicability of Raman techniques. In collaboration with Tornado Spectralx000D
Systems, the current proposal aims to overcome these limitations and focuses on the development of a novelx000D
flow cell module for the translation of Raman spectroscopy to blood analysis. The duration of the project willx000D
be six months and this work will serve as the foundation for future grant applications.