Natural Biomarkers for Cellular Metabolism ― Biology, Techniques, and Applications

From the Lab to Clinical Settings—Advances in Quantitative, Noninvasive Optical Diagnostics

Noninvasive fluorescence imaging techniques, novel fluorescent labels, and natural biomarkers are revolutionizing our knowledge of cellular processes, signaling and metabolic pathways, the underlying mechanisms for health problems, and the identification of new therapeutic targets for drug discoveries. Natural Biomarkers for Cellular Metabolism: Biology, Techniques, and Applications delves into the current state of knowledge on intrinsic fluorescent biomarkers and highlights recent developments in using these biomarkers for the metabolic mapping and clinical diagnosis of healthy and diseased cells and tissues.

Autofluorescent Biomarkers for Biomedical Diagnostics

The book’s first section introduces the fundamentals of cellular energy metabolism as well as natural biomarkers within the context of their biological functions. The second section outlines the theoretical and technical background of quantitative, noninvasive, autofluorescence microscopy and spectroscopy methods, including experimental design, calibration, pitfalls, and remedies of data acquisition and analysis. The last two sections highlight advances in biomedical and biochemical applications, such as monitoring stem cell differentiation in engineered tissues and diagnosing cancer and ophthalmic diseases quantitatively and noninvasively.

Tailored to Interdisciplinary Researchers

Covering cell biology, imaging techniques, and clinical diagnostics, this book provides readers with a complete guide to studying cellular/tissue metabolism under healthy, diseased, and environment-induced stress conditions using natural biomarkers. The book is designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students, biophysics instructors, medical researchers, and those in pharmaceutical R&D.

Vladimir V. Ghukasyan is a research assistant professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Physiology and a director of the Confocal and Multiphoton Imaging Facility of the Neuroscience Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He earned a PhD in biology from the Institute of Biotechnology, Yerevan, Armenia, and completed postdoctoral training at the Institute of Biophotonics, Taipei, Taiwan.

Ahmed A. Heikal is a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Swenson College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota Duluth. His research interests in molecular and cellular biophysics were inspired by his work with Watt W. Webb as a postdoctoral associate at Cornell University. Dr. Heikal earned a PhD in applied physics from the California Institute of Technology under the supervision of Nobel Laureate Ahmed H. Zewail.