Prof. David Graves, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of California at Berkeley

“Cold Atmospheric Plasma Biomedicine”

Abstract:
Ionized gas plasmas near room temperature are used in a remarkable number of technological applications mainly because they are extraordinarily efficient at exploiting electrical power for useful chemical and material transformations near room temperature. For example, plasma-assisted thin film deposition and etching applications in integrated circuit manufacture have evolved into technologies that allow control of features at the nanometer scale in commercial processes.

In this seminar, I will address the newest area of low temperature ionized gas plasmas, in this case operating under atmospheric pressure conditions, in which the temperature-sensitive material is living tissue. We sometimes use the term cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) to describe near-room temperature, atmospheric pressure partially ionized gas plasmas.

CAP research directed towards biomedical applications such as sterilization, surgery, wound healing and anti-cancer therapy has seen remarkable growth in the last 3-5 years, but the mechanisms responsible for the biomedical effects have remained mysterious. It is known that CAP readily create reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS). ROS and RNS (or RONS), in addition to a suite of other radical and non-radical reactive species, are essential actors in an important sub-field of aerobic biology termed ‘redox’ (or oxidation-reduction) biology. I will review the evidence suggesting that RONS generated by plasmas are responsible for their observed therapeutic effects.

Finally, I will review recent research results from our group and from other groups around the world, and suggest some of the more promising intellectual challenges and biomedical applications from our current perspective.

Host: Prof. Maurice Ringuette

Video Conferencing at UTM (DV 4001) & UTSc (MW 229)