Abstract
Low temperature plasmas that can be generated at atmospheric pressure and at temperatures below 40 oC have in the past couple of decades opened up a new frontier in plasma applications: biomedical applications. These plasma sources produce agents, such as reactive species (radicals and non-radicals), charged particles, photons, and electric fields, which have impactful biological effects. Investigators have been busy elucidating the physical and biochemical mechanisms whereby low temperature plasma affects biological cells on macroscopic and microscopic scales. A thorough understanding of these mechanisms is bound to lead to the development of novel plasma-based medical therapies. This mini review introduces the reader to this exciting multidisciplinary field of research.
Highlights
Plasma medicine is about using low temperature atmospheric pressure plasmas to generate controllable amounts of specific chemically reactive species that are transported to react with biological targets including cells and tissues
The field started in the mid-1990s by few proof of principle experiments which showed that low temperature plasma (LTP) possesses efficient bactericidal property [1,2,3,4,5]
It was realized from the very beginning that the reactive species generated by LTP, which include reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) played a pivotal role in the observed biological outcomes [1, 6]
Summary
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, United States. Specialty section: This article was submitted to Plasma Physics, a section of the journal
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