One of the things we focus on in our lab is applications of label-free observations for research and clinical diagnosis. This image is of a nonmalignant human mammary cell line as part of a breast cancer project. The left image is endogenous autofluorescence , which provides metabolic information about the cells related to electron donor concentrations (NADH in cyan, FAD in magenta). The right image is a CARS (Green) and SRS (Red) image of the same field of view on the left. CARS and SRS provide contrast based on vibrational bonds in a particular sample, however their methods of detection are slightly different. This particular vibrational mode (~2930 wavenumbers) is supposed to highlight -CH2 groups dominantly present in lipids.
NADH = Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (protonated)
FAD = Flavin Adenine Dinucleotide
CARS = Coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering
SRS = Stimulated Raman Scattering
