Invited Paper BO+PS+AS+BI+SS-TuA3
Plasma Medicine

Tuesday, October 21, 2008, 2:20 pm, Room 201

Novel engineering and science approaches sustaining human health, such as for example radiation biology and laser medicine, represent a significant segment of technological developments around the world. Recent breakthrough discoveries of the highly energetic but non-damaging direct treatment of living tissues with non-thermal plasma enable to create new branch of the engineering medicine, PLASMA MEDICINE, which creates qualitatively new possibilities of healing, treating of previously untreated diseases, deactivation of dangerous pathogenic organisms, development of new direct methods of medical diagnostics. New types of non-thermal atmospheric plasma discharges are able to operate directly contacting human body and other living tissues, which significantly increase effectiveness of the tissue sterilization, treatment of wounds, skin and other diseases, as well as direct medical diagnostics. Obviously success of the plasma medicine depends on deep fundamental understanding of physics, chemistry and biology of the non-thermal plasma interaction with living tissues, and engineering of the relevant non-thermal plasma discharges, which is to be discussed in the presentation. Recent achievements in plasma biotechnology also address many aspects of the challenging problem of deactivation of viruses and bacteria that cannot be disinfected by traditional methods. Disinfecting large volumes of air in buildings and hospitals economically is now possible with room-temperature atmospheric pressure plasma. Similarly, atmospheric plasma technology can be employed to sterilize medical equipment, clothing, and building walls; to disinfect living tissue without side effects, and to disinfect and preserve food and water without damage. In addition, plasma technology can also be used to create innovative tools for sensing, detection and identification of dangerous pathogenic organisms as well as to characterize success of the cleansing processes. Essential advantage of the plasma biotechnology is its potential for universal availability, due to the technology’s exclusive reliance on electrical power. It avoids many logistical difficulties associated with delivery, storage and disposal that typically hinder chemical and pharmaceutical approaches to sustainable health. Plasma technology can also be easily scaled from point-of-use devices to centrally operated plants capable of cleaning massive quantities of material. The key element of recent plasma technology developments is its use as a catalyst of many natural biological processes. As such, plasma can provide highly energy efficient treatment of biological materials, which is also to be discussed in the presentation.