  Novel techniques are currently being developed and established for the
accurate chemical analysis and detection of single cancer cells, single embryos
and single seeds by Fourier Transform Near Infrared (FT-NIR) Microspectroscopy,
Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR), Fluorescence and High-Resolution NMR
(HR-NMR). The first FT-NIR chemical images of biological systems approaching
1micron resolution are here reported. 400 and 500 MHz, H-1 NMR analyses were
carried out that allowed the selection of mutagenized embryos. Detailed
chemical analyses are being demonstrated to be also possible by FT-NIR Chemical
Imaging/ Microspectroscopy of single cancer cells. FT-NIR Microspectroscopy and
Chemical Imaging are also shown to be potentially important in Functional
Genomics and Proteomics research through the rapid and accurate detection of
high-content microarrays (HCMA). Multi-photon (MP), pulsed femtosecond laser
NIR Fluorescence Excitation techniques were shown to be capable of Single
Molecule Detection (SMD. Thus, MP NIR excitation for Fluorescence Correlation
Spectroscopy (FCS) allowed not only single molecule detection, but also
molecular dynamics observations and high resolution, submicron imaging of
sub-femtoliter volumes inside living cells with 0.25 micron spatial resolution,
in both normal and cancer cells, as well as neoplastic tissues. These novel,
ultra-sensitive and rapid FT-NIR/FCS analyses have, therefore, substantial
potential for numerous applications in important research areas, such as:
medicine, medical/cancer research, pharmacology, agricultural biotechnology,
food safety, as well as clinical diagnosis of viral diseases and cancers.
