Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive subtype of breast cancer that makes up about 13% of all new diagnoses each year. In addition to its low survival rate, there is significant disparity in outcomes between women from different racial groups. African American women experience nearly twice as high rates of mortality to TNBC as compared to non-Hispanic white women. The aggressive nature of the disease and the inequity in outcomes makes TNBC a compelling disease to study and to develop novel solutions for its treatment.

Raman scattering is a unique phenomenon where the wavelength of light that scatters away from a molecule after a collision travels at a different wavelength than which it collided with the molecule at. Raman spectroscopy is an experimental technique that uses these rare scattering events to collect information on the types and abundances of molecules that are present in a sample. Many important biological molecules, like proteins and lipids, have well-known Raman scattering wavelengths which can be measured to give a "picture" of the metabolic activity of a tissue.