We're working on this, its fun, and already possible at lab scale. Check out Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS).
And we've got a huge shot in the arm with covid. At consumer scale the hard problem is skipping any kind of sample prep. Requires unrealistically high sensitivity - we're trying to work around this with different no-prep based amplification techniques. There is actually a lot of interesting work happening in this space.
Further, currently the substrates use gold to enhance the raman scattering of the incident light. As you can imagine, this can get pretty expensive. There has been some success in using low cost paper/inkjet, textile/dye based approaches to introduce gold nanoparticles onto more familiar and easily mass produced substrate to achieve the same effect.
SERS is pretty cool, hasn't got its due and I think its going to be one of the underdogs in the diagnostic/detection market in the coming years.
Whats especially cool about it is - it doesn't restrict you to one thing - only genomes, only proteins etc.
You may need a different strategy for different pathogens, detecting the a gene or cell wall for one, a synthesised protein for another, or even the waste product / metabolite to check if a reaction took place - its not a hammer looking for a nail.
And we've got a huge shot in the arm with covid. At consumer scale the hard problem is skipping any kind of sample prep. Requires unrealistically high sensitivity - we're trying to work around this with different no-prep based amplification techniques. There is actually a lot of interesting work happening in this space.
Further, currently the substrates use gold to enhance the raman scattering of the incident light. As you can imagine, this can get pretty expensive. There has been some success in using low cost paper/inkjet, textile/dye based approaches to introduce gold nanoparticles onto more familiar and easily mass produced substrate to achieve the same effect.
SERS is pretty cool, hasn't got its due and I think its going to be one of the underdogs in the diagnostic/detection market in the coming years.
Whats especially cool about it is - it doesn't restrict you to one thing - only genomes, only proteins etc.
You may need a different strategy for different pathogens, detecting the a gene or cell wall for one, a synthesised protein for another, or even the waste product / metabolite to check if a reaction took place - its not a hammer looking for a nail.