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Updated: Oct 3, 2025

Atomic Absorbance Spectroscopy to Measure Intracellular Zinc Pools in Mammalian Cells
Published on: May 16, 2019
Investigating methods of normalization for X-ray fluorescence measurements of zinc in nail clippings using the TOPAS
Utsav Sharma1, Kurt Van Delinder1, James L Gräfe1
1Department of Physics, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Abstract:
Development of portable X-ray fluorescence devices has made it easier to quickly assess trace elements such as zinc in human tissue. A TOPAS Monte Carlo code was used to investigate the use of a portable X-ray fluorescence system for detecting zinc in nail clippings. The obtained energy spectra from different nail thicknesses were analyzed and three different normalization techniques (coherent, Compton, and entire spectrum) were introduced. The simulation results suggested that coherent normalization can be a particularly robust normalization procedure.

