EAGER: Plasma-Soft Matter interactions: Towards understanding the effect of nonequilibrium, cold plasma on liquid phase chemical reactions in cells using novel chemical sensors

1249787促进血浆医学是一个新兴的医疗保健领域，其中电离气体(血浆)被用于治疗和治疗疾病。由于电离气体或等离子体是在常压和室温下产生的，它可以很容易地应用于受伤或患病的人体组织。血浆医学的范围包括：1)医疗器械或人体组织的灭菌？直接针对超级细菌？例如食肉细菌2)伤口愈合3)牙齿护理？从牙齿清洁到根管4)局部皮肤治疗5)抗真菌治疗6)慢性病的治疗如克罗恩？S综合症7)凝血的管理8)整容手术，甚至9)癌症的治疗。显然，血浆医学在整个医学领域具有巨大的潜力和新的前景。虽然等离子体在医学领域用于治疗和灭菌的转化潜力已经被很好地记录下来，但关于等离子体辐照对活组织的影响的系统研究还没有进行。失落是一项系统的研究，真正阐明了愈合机制。此外，可以说，缺乏足够的工具来直接观察和测量等离子体引起的细胞(软物质)内的变化。这项研究的目的是区分等离子体暴露对细胞化学的原因和影响，方法是识别入射和返回经等离子体处理的生物组织的等离子体种类，并表征细胞内部的等离子体驱动反应。正是这种等离子体-软物质的相互作用是至关重要的。在这项研究中，注射到被研究细胞中的独立的、化学敏感的纳米探针将被用来调查和量化等离子体暴露带来的细胞内化学变化。分散在细胞内的注射纳米探针的荧光信号的变化反映了细胞内部条件的特定变化，如pH水平、氧气或自由基浓度。本研究中使用的电离气体源是冷源。等离子喷射器。射流高度准直和高度定向，使得在细胞基质上的应用相对简单。内部细胞的变化将与等离子体条件相关，而等离子体条件将使用微波和光学诊断来表征。所提出的方法是新颖和开创性的，因为它为实时分析等离子体对细胞化学的影响铺平了道路，从而导致对等离子体治疗特性的理解。这项研究的努力是高回报的，因为它有可能为直接评估作为等离子体暴露时间函数的细胞内的等离子体诱导条件奠定基础，从而真正量化并最终了解等离子体暴露对细胞的影响。这项拟议工作的更广泛影响是广泛的，因为它调查了一种新的方法来评估活细胞暴露在等离子体中时在细胞间水平上产生的影响。这项研究中获得的数据有望为理解血浆药物的治疗效果提供基础。从这一努力中获得的理解也将有助于定制等离子体治疗设备，因为将很好地量化等离子体发生器设置与细胞水平上诱导的影响之间的关系。到目前为止，血浆医学的发展有点？爱迪生？在接近中。虽然在任何新的和新兴的领域，这种方法可以在早期有效，从人类治疗的角度了解所涉及的机制，需要诊断学来指导发展并为预测理论提供基础。这一努力有望通过为测量细胞内等离子体诱导的影响提供直接、近实时的诊断，从而促进血浆医学这一令人兴奋的新领域的增长和潜在的主流化。这项工作有助于医疗保健领域，因为已经证明，血浆药物除其他外，明显促进伤口愈合。门诊伤口治疗是全球数十亿美元的领域(仅在美国每年就有200亿美元)，针对的是那些患有慢性伤口的人(例如糖尿病患者)？仅在美国就有近600万美元。

1249787FosterPlasma medicine is a new and emerging subfield of healthcare in which ionized gas (plasma) is used for the purpose of therapy and the treatment of disease. Because the ionized gas or plasma is produced at normal atmospheric pressure and room temperature, it can readily be applied to injured or diseased human tissue. The scope of plasma medicine includes 1) sterilization of medical instruments or human tissue?directly addressing ?super bugs? such as flesh eating bacteria 2) wound healing 3) dental care?from tooth cleaning to root canals 4) topical skin treatment 5) anti-fungal therapies 6) treatment of chronic disease such as Crohn?s syndrome 7) management of blood coagulation 8) cosmetic surgery, and even 9) the treatment of cancer. It is clear that plasma medicine holds great potential and new vistas for the field of medicine in general. While the transformational potential of plasmas for therapy and sterilization in the medical field is well documented, a systematic investigation into the effects of plasma irradiation on living tissue has yet to be carried out. Missing is a systematic study that truly elucidates the healing mechanisms. Further it can be argued that lacking are adequate tools necessary to observe and measure the plasma-induced changes within cells (soft matter) directly. This research aims to differentiate between the cause and the effect of plasma exposure on cell chemistry by identifying the plasma species that are incident on and returning from biological tissues treated by plasmas, and characterizing the plasma-driven reactions within the cell itself. It is this plasma-soft matter interaction that is of paramount importance. In this investigation, free-standing, chemistry-sensitive nano-probes injected into the cells under study will be used to investigate and quantify intracellular chemical changes brought on by plasma exposure. Changes in fluorescence signal from the injected nano-probes dispersed within the cell reflect specific changes in internal cell conditions such as pH level, oxygen, or radical concentration. The ionized gas source to be used in this research is a ?cold? plasma jet. The jet is highly collimated and highly directional, making application to the cell substrate relatively straightforward. Internal cell changes will be correlated with plasma conditions, which in turn will be characterized using microwave and optical diagnostics. The proposed methodology is novel and groundbreaking in that it paves the way for real time analysis of the effect of plasma on cell chemistry thereby leading to an understanding of the curative properties of plasmas. This research effort is high payoff in that it has the potential to lay the foundation for a direct assessment of plasma-induced conditions within the cell as a function of plasma exposure time, thereby truly quantifying and ultimately understanding the effect of plasma exposure on the cell. The broader impact of the proposed work is broad in that it investigates a novel approach to assessing effects induced at the intercellular level when living cells are exposed to plasma. The data obtained in this study is expected to provide a basis for understanding the therapeutic effects associated with plasma medicine. The understanding gained from this effort will also be useful in tailoring plasma therapy equipment as the relationship between the plasma generator settings and effects induced at the cellular level will be well quantified. To date, plasma medicine development has been somewhat ?Edisonian? in approach. While in any new and emerging field, this approach can be effective early on, to obtain an understanding of mechanisms involved from a human therapy standpoint, diagnostics are needed to guide the development and provide the foundations for predictive theory. The effort is expected to contribute to the growth and potential mainstreaming of the exciting new field of plasma medicine by providing a direct, near real-time diagnostics for measuring plasma-induced effects within the cell itself. This work contributes to the field of healthcare as it has been demonstrated that plasma medicine among other things clearly enhances wound healing. Outpatient wound treatment is a many-billion dollar field worldwide (20 billion dollars annually in the U.S. alone) addressing those who suffer from chronic wounds (diabetics for example)?nearly 6 million in the US alone.