Allis Prize Talk: Plasma Medicine: When the Fourth State of Matter Meets Living Matter 

In the early 1990s, I was involved in work that used atmospheric pressure plasma generated by a dielectric barrier discharge to enhance the hydrophilicity of plastics and fabrics. One day, I wondered what the effects of plasma would be if the treated surface were that of a living biological target, such as cells or tissues. Since I could not find information about such effects in peer reviewed scientific literature, I decided to investigate myself, purely out of curiosity. I am happy to report that three decades later, much knowledge has been generated towards the understanding of the interaction of plasma with biological matter, thanks to the efforts of a large research community. In this presentation I will attempt to describe how ideas progressed from the fundamental level to practical applications. The biomedical applications of low temperature atmospheric pressure plasma (LTP) today constitute a multidisciplinary research field, known as “plasma medicine”, with its own conferences and peer reviewed journals. LTP has so far found success in medical applications such as dermatology, wound healing, biological decontamination, and others [1,2]. 

[1] M. Laroussi, “Cold Plasma in Medicine and Healthcare: The New Frontier in Low Temperature Plasma Applications”, Frontiers in Physics 8, 74, (2020). 

 

[2] M. Laroussi et al., “Low Temperature Plasma for Biology, Hygiene, and Medicine: Perspective and Roadmap”, IEEE Trans. Radiation & Plasma Medical Sci., Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 127-157, (2022).