Dmitry Kurouski

Seminar Details

Host: TBA

Time: 4:00 pm- 5:00 pm

Location: BICH 108

Seminar Abstract

During the past years, my research group has been focused on the development of the innovative optical systems that (i) enabled highly accurate sensing of viral and bacterial diseases in plants, animals, and humans. We demonstrated that Raman spectroscopy could be used to diagnose Lyme disease based on pathogen-induced changes in the chemical profiles of blood. Furthermore, we showed that Raman spectroscopy was capable of tracking aging and identifying diet preferences. This discovery suggests that Raman spectroscopy can be used to personalize diet and reduce the risk of diet-related chronic diseases. Innovative optical techniques developed by my group also (ii) allowed for the confirmatory detection and identification of dyes in hair and fabric, two most commonly found at crime scenes forensic pieces of evidence. Finally, (iii) we showed that Raman- and Infrared-based optical nano-sensing approaches pioneered by my group could be used to monitor transformations in the secondary structure of amyloid oligomers that are taking place upon their propagation into insoluble fibrils. Using these nano-sensing techniques, my group discovered that lipids could uniquely alter both secondary structure and toxicity of amyloid oligomers and fibrils. These changes, in turn, drastically change the toxicity of these protein aggregates. These findings could be a paradigm-shift discovery as it suggests that pathological changes in the lipid profile can be the underlying cause of neurodegeneration.