Search

The Chernobyl disaster of 1986 is among the largest technogenic catastrophes in the history of humankind. The vast territories of Ukraine, Republic of Belarus, Russian Federation as well as bordering European states have been exposed to the contamination by the long-lived radionuclides released from the destroyed nuclear power station. The medical consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe are being studied for more than three decades. In fact, the increased risk of certain forms of leukemia is among the major stochastic effects of radiation exposure. Nevertheless, the final unambiguous conclusions as to the role of low-dose radiation exposure in the induction of leukemia are still pending. The book presents the results of studies on the diagnosis of various forms of hematological malignancies in Ukrainian patients provided for more than thirty years in the Oncohematology Department of RE Kavetsky Institute of Experimental Pathology, Oncology and Radiobiology, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Among the groups of leukemia patients were the Chernobyl clean-up workers as well as the patients from Ukrainian population (adults and children) inhabiting the territories with different levels of radionuclide contamination. For the first time, some trends in the patterns of hematological malignancies in several sample groups under study have been identified throughout the post-Chernobyl period. The putative association between the low dose radiation exposure and the increasing risk of acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes and chronic lymphocytic leukemia has been discussed based on the findings of the authors of the book as well as the data of the available literature.

In the last decade, we have seen spurring growth in academic and industrial interest in Raman spectroscopy and its modifications, in particular, Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS). This is evident by the number of SERS publications in the last decade, from 580 in 2005 to almost 2000 in 2014. There are now companies worldwide that are dedicated to manufacturing SERS substrate, sensors, and other SERS-based products. The miniaturization of Raman instrumentation from bulky and expensive bench-top designs to inexpensive handheld spectrometers has allowed SERS to be employed as an in situ detection technique. Some examples of the industrial success of Raman and SERS are rapid raw material identification (RMID), Process Analytical Technology (PAT) and drug screening in pharma and biotech industries, continuous surveillance of food, water, and environmental safety, and the diagnosis and continuous monitoring of diseases like cancer, diabetes, etc. This progress in translating Raman and SERS techniques into commercial use and commercial products is possible because of the close collaboration between scientists and engineers. However, the weak signals of Raman spectroscopy is an inherent limitation of the spontaneous Raman spectroscopy technique. Therefore, several modifications have been made, including but not limited to, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), spatially offset Raman spectroscopy (SORS), transmission Raman spectroscopy (TRS), coherent anti-Stoke's Raman spectroscopy (CARS), and tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS). Spontaneous Raman spectroscopy has become a one-of-a kind, portable, and affordable technology for in-situ detection and continuous monitoring in resource-limited-settings. The primary focus of this textbook is to try to cover the fundamentals in SERS methods of preparing substrates and sensors, and efficient spectral analysis approaches like chemometrics for diverse applications, listed in the paragraph above. However, with a goal to give a true picture to the audience when assessing the scope of spontaneous Raman and Surface-enhanced Raman for specific applications, we have briefly introduced industrially successful examples of other types of Raman spectroscopy techniques, such as SORS, TRS, and CARS.