Terahertz Response of Biological Tissue for Diagnostic and Treatment in Personalized Medicine

TL;DR

This paper proposes a silicon nanosandwich spectrometer for analyzing the terahertz response of biological tissue, enabling rapid, non-invasive diagnostics and personalized treatment by identifying spectral features related to DNA and proteins.

Contribution

It introduces a novel SNS-based spectrometer capable of directly measuring the THz response of living tissue for personalized medicine applications.

Findings

Spectral analysis of biological tissues is feasible with SNS structures.

The method allows for direct, rapid analysis of DNA oligonucleotides.

Potential for improved personalized diagnostics and treatments.

Abstract

A spectrometer based on silicon nanosandwiches (SNS) is proposed for problems of personalized medicine. SNS structures exhibit properties of terahertz (THz) emitter and receiver of the THz response of biological tissue. Measurements of the current-voltage curves of the SNS structure make it possible to analyze the spectral composition of the THz response of biological tissue and determine relative contributions of various proteins and amino acids contained in the structure of DNA oligonucleotides and the corresponding compounds. Evident advantages of the proposed method are related to the fact that the THz response can be directly obtained from living biological tissue and, hence, used for express analysis of the DNA oligonucleotides. Tests of several control groups show that the further analysis of the specific features of the spectral peaks of the SNS current-voltage curves is of interest for methods of personalized diagnostics and treatment.