Terahertz spectroscopy of misfolded proteins in bio-tissue

Proteins in living organisms must fold in order to carry out their biological function. However some proteins misfold to become unwanted deposits. Understanding the causes and mechanics of protein folding is immensely important in the study of diseases which are caused by protein misfolding. This abstract reports on a novel study which uses terahertz (THz) spectroscopy to probe misfolded proteins in excised diseased human brain tissue. Our early results show distinction in the THz absorption spectra, which could be attributed to pathological changes in the diseased tissue.Png, G.M.; Flook, R.; Ng, B.W.-H. and Abbott, D