Osnabrück 2002 – wissenschaftliches Programm
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SYBP: Biophotonik
SYBP 4: Postersitzung
SYBP 4.5: Poster
Donnerstag, 7. März 2002, 17:45–20:00, Schloss
Spectroscopy of biomolecules in the conformational fingerprint region — •Peter Uhd Jepsen, Bernd Fischer, Markus Walther, and Hanspeter Helm — Department of Molecular and Optical Physics, Fakultät für Physik, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Str. 3, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany
The lowest vibrational modes of large organic molecules are found in the spectral range below 150 cm−1, and form characteristic fingerprints with information about the conformation of the molecules. Although still relatively unexplored, the far infrared therefore represents a promising spectral region for recognition of the conformational state of large biomolecules such as proteins and DNA sequences.
THz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) has over the last decade proven to be a highly versatile experimental tool in physics and chemistry. It has opened new avenues of static and ultrafast transient spectroscopy studies in the far infrared region, which traditionally has been difficult to approach by other techniques. An open question which currently attracts much attention is: can coherent THz radiation be used with the same impact in biochemical and medical research?
We will present results from our recent work with THz-TDS on biological chromophores, vitamins, the four nucleic acids, small DNA sequences, and pharmaceutical molecules. Apart from new spectroscopic information in the form of a database of novel absorption spectra of many biomolecules, we believe that THz-TDS can be applied for detection and recognition of small amounts of a wide range of biologically relevant molecules.