A paper just published in the Journal of Biophotonics describes how Raman spectoscopy can enable the detection of RNA viruses in human saliva. Dr. Amit Dutt’s group at the Tata Memorial Centre, based in Mumbai, obtained raw data with a WITec Raman microscope and carried out statistical analysis to find a set of 65 Raman spectral features that positively identified the presence or absence of viruses in a sample.
The analysis could be performed in less than a minute without adding a reagent to increase the signal. Their signal set was able to achieve 92.5% sensitivity and 88.8% specificity.
“This conceptual framework to detect RNA viruses in saliva could form the basis for field application of Raman Spectroscopy in managing viral outbreaks, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” said the researchers.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jbio.202000189