Physics of Medicine

Research in Physics of Medicine

Other relevant links

• http://sites.google.com/site/sumeetmahajan/
• http://www.np.phy.cam.ac.uk
• http://www.bss.phy.cam.ac.uk/

Research description

Low sensitivity and little chemical information are the bane of many biological studies and hamper our understanding of natural phenomena. Spectroscopy and electrochemical methods lie at the heart of development of microscopic imaging techniques and sensors at the molecular and cellular level. We develop novel, sensitive and label-free methods for molecular imaging and use them for in vitro and in vivo studies. Another key cornerstone of our research is probing and understanding the interaction of nanomaterials with biological systems. We utilize this knowledge in combination with spectroscopic and electrochemical techniques to develop sensors and diagnostic tools for use by medical practitioners. All our research is understandably highly inter-disciplinary involving physicists, chemists, engineers and biologists and provides many avenues to develop imaginative projects at the interface of physical sciences with biology.

Research areas

• Surface enhanced spectroscopic techniques
• Biomolecular and non-linear Raman imaging
• Nanomaterials in biology and for healthcare diagnostics
• Projects available

Selected Publications

• Anna Huefner, William Kuan, Roger Barker and Sumeet Mahajan, "Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy for cellular imaging", Biochemical Society Transactions, 2012 (In preparation)
• Christian Steuwe, Clemens Kaminski, Jeremy J. Baumberg and Sumeet Mahajan, "Surface Enhanced Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Scattering on Nanostructured Gold Surfaces", Nano Letters, 11 5339-5343 (2011)
• Richard Taylor, Tung-Chun Lee, Oren Scherman, Ruben Esteban, Javier Aizpurua, Fumin Huang, Jeremy Baumberg and Sumeet Mahajan, "Precise Sub-nm Plasmonic Junctions for SERS with Gold Nanoparticle Assemblies using Cucurbit[n]uril 'Glue'", ACS Nano, 5 3878-3887 (2011)
• Li Li, Ullrich Steiner and Sumeet Mahajan*, "Improved Electrochromic Performance of Highly Ordered Macroporous Vanadium Oxide Films", J. Mater. Chem., 20 7131-7134 (2010)
• Sumeet Mahajan, Robin Cole, Andrea Russell, Philip N. Bartlett and Jeremy J. Baumberg, "Understanding the SERS Background", J. Phys. Chem. C, 114 7242-7250 (2010)
• Sumeet Mahajan, Robin Cole, Bruno F. Soares, Suzanne H. Pelfrey, Andrea E. Russell, Jeremy J. Baumberg and Philip N. Bartlett, "Relating SERS intensity to specific plasmon modes on sphere segment void surfaces", J. Phys. Chem. C, 113 9284-89 (2009)
• Sumeet Mahajan, James Richardson, Tom Brown, and Philip N. Bartlett, "SERS-Melting: A New Method for Discriminating Mutations in DNA Sequences," J. Am. Chem. Soc., 130 15589-15601 (2008)