Pacific Rim Symposium on Surfaces, Coatings and Interfaces (PacSurf 2016)
    Biomaterial Surfaces & Interfaces Thursday Sessions
       Session BI-ThM

Invited Paper BI-ThM4
Fundamentals of Plasma Interactions with Biological Systems

Thursday, December 15, 2016, 9:00 am, Room Milo

Session: Plasma for Biomedical Applications
Presenter: Endre Szili, University of South Australia, Australia
Authors: E. Szili, University of South Australia, Australia
R.D. Short, University of South Australia, Australia
Correspondent: Click to Email
There is significant optimism that cold atmospheric plasma could play a role in the treatment of diseases and infection, particularly those that are refractory and potentially life-threatening such as non-healing chronic wounds and cancers. The medical benefits from plasma are assigned to reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) that are generated by plasma upon interaction with air and liquids. However, we still do not have a sufficient understanding of (1) what RONS are delivered by plasma, (2) the rate RONS are delivered, (3) how the RONS are perturbed by tissue and (4) how RONS interact with cellular membranes. This knowledge is essential in order to obtain a quantitative mechanistic understanding of plasma in biology and medicine. In this talk, I will discuss simple biological mimics of 3D tissue or cells membranes, which are utilized to gain new insight into the plasma generation and transport of RONS and molecular oxygen into tissue fluid, tissue and cells. Surprisingly, we discovered that plasma can directly transport RONS and molecular oxygen deep within tissue to millimeter depths and across cellular membranes without physically damaging the tissue or cell membrane. In addition, I will discuss how the combined dynamic changes in the concentrations of RONS and molecular oxygen in the biological fluid can significantly impact cell viability during and after the plasma treatment. Finally, I will discuss how the above assays can support the future development of plasma sources to deliver metered doses of RONS and molecular oxygen within tissue for treatment of diseases such as chronic wounds and cancers.