Ensuring the integrity of quality control and assurance of consumable products across consumer goods distribution and supply chains is pertinent to ensure consumer products of high quality to guarantee public health. Several analytical strategies, and technological innovations have been developed over the years for the quality control and assurance of consumable products. However, the simplicity and the noninvasive and nondestructive properties of Raman, near-infrared (NIR), and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometers, coupled with the low-cost and portability make these instrumental techniques excellent tools of choice for quality control and assurance of consumable products. This review article examines recent technological innovations and advances in Raman, NIR and FTIR spectroscopic instrument development and multivariate analyses used in consumer product analysis. New innovations in Raman, NIR, and FTIR spectroscopies as applied to analytical method development for purity analysis, quality control and assurance of consumable food products between January 2015 and December 2018 are discussed. Applications of data processing strategies and multivariate analyses of spectral data for instrumental and sample calibration, chemical analysis, and pattern recognition of consumable products are presented. The review also provides insight into the future trajectory of innovative technological developments in molecular spectroscopy, and multivariate analyses pertaining to general applications for consumer product analysis.

Quality checks, assessments, and the assurance of food products, raw materials, and food ingredients is critically important to ensure the safeguard of foods of high quality for safety and public health. Nevertheless, quality checks, assessments, and the assurance of food products along distribution and supply chains is impacted by various challenges. For instance, the development of portable, sensitive, low-cost, and robust instrumentation that is capable of real-time, accurate, and sensitive analysis, quality checks, assessments, and the assurance of food products in the field and/or in the production line in a food manufacturing industry is a major technological and analytical challenge. Other significant challenges include analytical method development, method validation strategies, and the non-availability of reference materials and/or standards for emerging food contaminants. The simplicity, portability, non-invasive, non-destructive properties, and low-cost of NIR spectrometers, make them appealing and desirable instruments of choice for rapid quality checks, assessments and assurances of food products, raw materials, and ingredients. This review article surveys literature and examines current challenges and breakthroughs in quality checks and the assessment of a variety of food products, raw materials, and ingredients. Specifically, recent technological innovations and notable advances in quartz crystal microbalances (QCM), electroanalytical techniques, and near infrared (NIR) spectroscopic instrument development in the quality assessment of selected food products, and the analysis of food raw materials and ingredients for foodborne pathogen detection between January 2019 and July 2020 are highlighted. In addition, chemometric approaches and multivariate analyses of spectral data for NIR instrumental calibration and sample analyses for quality assessments and assurances of selected food products and electrochemical methods for foodborne pathogen detection are discussed. Moreover, this review provides insight into the future trajectory of innovative technological developments in QCM, electroanalytical techniques, NIR spectroscopy, and multivariate analyses relating to general applications for the quality assessment of food products.

High operational costs of modern medical devices and the required specialized, skilled personnel with certifications to operate most medical instrumentation remains a challenge and an impediment to rapid medical diagnosis and clinical analysis. The simplicity, portability, and ease of operation makes Raman spectrometers appealing for rapid medical diagnosis and clinical analysis at an affordable cost. Besides, the combined use of Raman spectroscopy and multivariate analyses has further facilitated effective pattern recognition providing accurate classification, and/or differentiation of biological and clinical samples. This review article highlights recent advances in Raman spectroscopy in medical diagnosis and clinical analysis between January 2018 and December 2020. Recent innovations in the use of Raman spectroscopy for chemical analysis in human specimens are discussed. Applications of Raman spectroscopy in cancer immunotherapy, cancer imaging, and detecting disease biomarkers in clinical samples are further highlighted. The review article highlights recent innovations in the use of Raman spectroscopy for the detection of various pathogens in human specimens. Moreover, recent innovations of combined uses of Raman spectroscopy and multivariate regression analyses for pattern recognition, and/or classification of clinical samples are discussed. Furthermore, insights into the projection in the use of Raman spectroscopy in medical diagnosis and clinical sample analysis are discussed.

The intake of adulterated and unhealthy oils and trans-fats in the human diet has had negative health repercussions, including cardiovascular disease, causing millions of deaths annually. Sadly, a significant percentage of all consumable products including edible oils are neither screened nor monitored for quality control for various reasons. The prospective intake of adulterated oils and the associated health impacts on consumers is a significant public health safety concern, necessitating the need for quality assurance checks of edible oils. This study reports a simple, fast, sensitive, accurate, and low-cost chemometric approach to the purity analysis of highly refined peanut oils (HRPO) that were adulterated either with vegetable oil (VO), canola oil (CO), or almond oil (AO) for food quality assurance purposes. The Fourier transform infrared spectra of the pure oils and adulterated HRPO samples were measured and subjected to a partial-least-square (PLS) regression analysis. The obtained PLS regression figures-of-merit were incredible, with remarkable linearity (R² = 0.994191 or better). The results of the score plots of the PLS regressions illustrate pattern recognition of the adulterated HRPO samples. Importantly, the PLS regressions accurately determined percent compositions of adulterated HRPOs, with an overall root-mean-square-relative-percent-error of 5.53% and a limit-of-detection as low as 0.02% (wt/wt). The developed PLS regressions continued to predict the compositions of newly prepared adulterated HRPOs over a period of two months, with incredible accuracy without the need for re-calibration. The accuracy, sensitivity, and robustness of the protocol make it desirable and potentially adoptable by health departments and local enforcement agencies for fast screening and quality assurance of consumable products.

The lysophospholipase D autotaxin (ATX) generates lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) that activates six cognate G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR) in cancerous cells, promoting their motility and invasion. In this present study, four novel compounds were synthesized aided by molecular docking guided design to obtain new dual inhibitors of ATX and the lysophosphatidic acid receptor subtype