Successful drug development has a significant impact on people's quality of life worldwide. Being able to track how molecules get into target cells, and observing what they do when they are inside, is key to identifying the best candidates. Analysis techniques therefore form an important part of the drug discovery process. Researchers from Osaka University, in collaboration with RIKEN, have reported a Raman microscopy-based approach for visualizing small-molecule drugs that uses gold nanoparticles. The team's findings are published in ACS Nano.