Defining Plasma Dose for Potential Future Cancer Treatments

Chinese researchers may have found a new approach to treat cancer by using a plasma treatment to induce apoptosis, without any obvious side effect to normal cells. A plasma-activated medium (PAM) can be treated as a drug, with a dose-effect relationship. In Physics of Plasmas, the scientists’ definition of a plasma dose, the equivalent total oxidation potential (ETOP), can be used for PAM to reveal the plasma dose-response relationship for different cell types.

Understanding the Utility of Plasmas for Medical Applications

Plasma medicine is an emerging field, as plasmas show promise for use in a wide range of therapies from wound healing to cancer treatment, and plasma jets are the main plasma sources typically used in plasma-surface applications. To better understand how plasma jets modify the surfaces of biological tissue, researchers conducted computer simulations of the interaction between an atmospheric pressure plasma jet with a surface that has properties similar to blood serum. They present their analysis in the Journal of Applied Physics.

Jean Paul Allain: Then and Now

Jean Paul Allain is a professor and department head of the Ken and Mary Alice Lindquist Department of Nuclear Engineering, the director of the Radiation Surface Science and Engineering Laboratory, professor in Biomedical Engineering by courtesy and the Lloyd & Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair in Plasma Medicine at Penn State University.