Date of Award

1-1-2019

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Chemistry

Content Description

1 online resource (ix, 68 pages) : illustrations (some color)

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Igor K Lednev

Committee Members

Jan Halamek, Jeremy Feldblyum, Alexander Shekhtman, Kelly Virkler

Keywords

Chemometrics, Forensics, Serology, Body fluids, Raman spectroscopy, Chemistry, Forensic

Subject Categories

Analytical Chemistry

Abstract

This project continues the research on a new method of body fluid identification and furthers its field capabilities. This method of identification uses Raman spectroscopy and advanced chemometrics to distinguish between body fluids. It is an improvement on current methods because it is confirmatory, non-destructive, and has simple sample preparation. The first objective of this research is to create a model for differentiating body fluids for a new desktop instrument. It was determined that due to resolution differences from a research grade instrument, a new model needed to be made for this the desktop instrument. This model will be able to differentiate the five body fluids (peripheral blood, sweat, semen, and saliva). The second objective of this research is to use a program, called HAMAND to help overcome the problem of substrate interference. The program separates the contribution of the substrate from the body fluid and is not substrate specific. The third objective of this research will be to investigate the relationship between sperm, seminal fluid and identification of semen by statistical models. The Raman signal of sperm will be found and compared to that of semen and seminal fluid. This will speak to our methods ability to identify semen if sperm in not present. The fourth objective was to integrate our Raman spectroscopy based method of semen detection into a method that is currently being used at a crime lab. The overall goal of this is to do the two methods simultaneously to validate our method while still using crime lab approved techniques. These four objectives will validate our technique and help ready it for real life application. The last objective is investigating the nature of fluorescence interference when using a glass substrate, which we have come across in the course of the previous four objectives. We characterized three fluorescence bands seen when glass is irradiated with 785 nm laser excitation and proved that they were not Raman bands.

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