At the annual meeting of the European COST campaign Raman4Clinics, research groups from 21 European countries agreed on the next steps for establishing Raman measurement methods in clinical diagnostics. This includes the calibration of instruments, round robin tests on standard samples and unified sample preparations and data analyses. Possible applications are found in the therapeutic monitoring of drug dosages, identification of infectious agents, the typing of cells and detection of tumor margins.
A roadmap was developed to transfer databases and classification algorithms from various research institutes to hospitals. A key to this is accurate calibrations of instruments and their validation in round robin tests involving all laboratories. Pilot applications were discussed, which the partners will carry out in clinical preliminary studies until the end of 2018.
“Raman spectroscopy has already proved its effectiveness in many feasibility studies for medical diagnostics such as for cancer, cardiovascular diseases and infections,” said Prof. Dr. Jürgen Popp, Research Director of the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT) and Chairman of the COST campaign. “Now we have to demonstrate the transferability, so that Raman spectroscopy systems can be used in routine laboratory diagnostics or clinical in vivo diagnostics.”
The annual meeting took place from 1-3 June at the IPHT. More than 85 participants from 20 countries came to Jena for the event.
COST campaigns aim to link national research projects in concentrated campaigns on various topics and thereby utilise existing capacities of knowledge, technical equipment and financial resources effectively throughout Europe and to create lasting partnerships.