A multimodal approach to time-resolved optical spectroscopy for biomolecular detection

The investigation of surface chemical reactions in biological samples, avoiding sample preparation treatments, is important to access the complex chemical machinery of living cells. Many cell functions depend on surface ligand-receptor complexes or surface chemical reactions and many kind of tumors start from the first cellular layer inside hollow organs. Therefore, non-invasive techniques that allow in vivo study of chemical processes located at surfaces are fundamental tools to develop and test biological models and target diseases. Optical spectroscopy techniques, tailored to image surface molecular complexes, are a possible answer to these issues.