Plasma Biomedicine: Modelings and Experiments on Cancer Treatment, Tooth Bleaching, and Decontamination

Non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasmas have attracted great interests and been widely used in biomedical applications to interact with living tissue, cell, and bacteria. Gold nanoparticles conjugated with anti-FAK antibody have been introduced to cancerous cells to enhance selective killing of cancerous and normal cells, and the mechanism of cell apoptosis induced by plasma has been investigated [1,2]. Tooth exposed to helium plasma jet with hydrogen peroxide or alike has become brighter and the production of hydroxyl radicals decomposed from hydrogen peroxide have been enhanced by plasma exposure [3]. Sterilization by non-thermal plasma devices and the global and PIC modelings of these plasmas will also be presented. \\[4pt] [1] G. C. Kim, et al., ``Air plasma coupled with antibody-conjugated nanoparticles: a new weapon against cancer,'' \textit{J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys.} 42, 032005 (2009); \textit{Plasma Medicine} (to appear); \textit{Europhysics News} 40/2, 14 (2009).\\[0pt] [2] G. J. Kim, et al., ``DNA damage and mitochondria dysfunction in cell apoptosis induced by nonthermal air plasma,'' \textit{Appl. Phys. Lett.} \textbf{96}, 021502 (2010). \\[0pt] [3] H. W. Lee, et al., ``Tooth bleaching with nonthermal atmospheric pressure plasma,'' \textit{J. Endod.} \textbf{35}, 587 (2009); Plasma Proc. {\&} Polymers 7, 274 (2010).