Revisiting Said’s “Secular Criticism”

Femtosecond photonic viral inactivation probed using solid-state nanopores

“…USP viral inactivation with greater than 4-log reduction in viral infectivity would enable new chemical free pathogen clearance technology. [34,37,38] The first objective of this study is to extend the work done on USP inactivation of viruses, using a regeneratively amplified laser system. We expedite the reported USP photonic inactivation (>1 hr) [34] to 1 min.…”

“…Photonic methods have the potential to provide an attractive alternative to existing biocides and ionizing radiation techniques. [4][5][6][7][8] Photonic inactivation has been successfully achieved with the focused femtosecond (fs) laser pulses for exposure times of ≥ 1h on sample volumes typically of ≤2 ml. [4][5][6][7]9,10] Although the ultrafast laser inactivation method for viral inactivation is fairly well established, a systematic understanding of the inactivation ^ Current address of C. Gillespie: Immunogen, 830 Winter St Waltham MA * wanunu@neu.edu and shyam@bu.edu mechanism, which can contribute to the design and optimization of protocols, is currently lacking.…”

The application of Raman spectroscopy for the detection and identification of microorganisms

“…[11,[89][90][91][92][93][94] Based on the Raman spectral fingerprint, the discrimination of various pathogens and even between closely related strains was achieved, including S. aureus, [90,91,95] S. epidermidis, [1,96,97]pathogenic and non-pathogenic E. coli, [96,98] Salmonella, [91,99] Pseudomonas, [100,101] Chlamydia, [102] Enterococcus strains, [103] mycobacteria, [104,105] L. monocytogenes, [106] and many more. Also, viral pathogens were objects of investigation in a clinical context, as it was reported for rotavirus, [107] cytomegalovirus, [108,109] influenza strains, [110] human papillomavirus (HPV), [111] Varicella zoster virus, and Porcine teschovirus, [112] as well as echovirus 1. [113] Additionally, by means of Raman spectroscopy, clinically relevant eukaryotic microorganisms were studied such as several pathogenic fungi, [114] Candida, [115] Candida and Aspergillus, [116] dermatophytes of the genus Trichophyton, [117] and the protozoa Toxoplasma gondii.…”

“…It was demonstrated that USP laser treatment inactivates viruses by inhibiting viral replication and transcription in the host nucleus. [109] Vice versa, a Raman spectroscopy-compatible inactivation method for pathogenic bacterial endospores was presented by Stöckel et al [127] Raman spectroscopy was established to verify the efficiency of well-established microbial inactivation strategies for endospores of Bacillus strains, including the biosafety level 3 agent B. anthracis. The inactivation efficacy of formaldehyde, peracetic acid, household bleach (NaOCl), and autoclaving was tested 15 and 30 min and 1, 2, and 4 h after treatment.…”

Form, symmetry and packing of biomacromolecules. V. Shells with boundaries at anti-nodes of resonant vibrations in icosahedral RNA viruses

“…The existence of resonant vibration modes in the filled capsid suggests breaking it and destructing the virus by forced resonant oscillations as an interesting alternative approach. It is a type of selective inactivation of viruses and bacteria which has been realised by applying femtosecond laser pulses (Tsen et al, 2007(Tsen et al, , 2008(Tsen et al, , 2010. For interpreting this inactivation, a theoretical model of low-frequencies Raman spectra of icosahedral virus capsids has been developed by Dykeman & Sankey (2010).…”