ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the two disciplines that may contribute the most to the next generation of noninvasive (NI) diagnostic instrumentation are photonics and molecular biology. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a molecular biology/biochemical protocol used to exactly replicate a single piece of DNA from a sample to create thousands to millions of copies of that particular DNA sequence. The chapter focuses on how photonics in the embodiment of Fourier transform (FT) spectroscopy, as in the SpectraCube system, can analyze the spectral absorption of biological surfaces at the pixel level. Cancer cells have different affinities for various fluorescent dye molecules than normal cells, and the pattern recognition software used with a SpectraCube system can be programmed to "recognize" cancer cells by their spectral signatures. Spectral karyotyping (SKY) is a powerful research tool enabling researchers to follow chromosomal rearrangements in mouse cancer cell lines. Spectral pathology (SPY) is a spectral imaging technique used with bright-field microscopy.
