In vitro osteosarcoma biosensing using THz time domain spectroscopy

Abstract

Terahertz time domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) has a wide range ofapplications from semiconductor diagnostics to biosensing. Recentattention has focused on bio-applications and several groups havenoted the ability of THz-TDS to differentiate basal cell carcinomatissue from healthy dermal tissue ex vivo.The contrast mechanism is unclear but has been attributed toincreased interstitial water in cancerous tissue. In this work weinvestigate the THz response of human osteosarcoma cells andnormal human bone cells grown in culture to isolate the cells'responses from other effects. A classification algorithms basedon a frequency selection by genetic algorithm is used to attemptto differentiate between the cell types based on the THz spectra.Encouraging preliminary results have been obtained.