PFI-TT: Cold plasma technology to enable a future cancer treatment device to reduce surgical margins

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this Partnerships for Innovation - Technology Translation (PFI-TT) project addresses the important need of treating the surgical margins, or edges, identified in cancer operations. The proposed activity will be to develop innovative technology known as "cold atmospheric plasma" to treat the edges of tumors and other areas involved in cancer surgeries. The technology will be advanced closer to market readiness, potentially impacting several sectors of the national economy, including medical equipment and scientific devices. Also, the careers of the involved researchers, which include graduate students and postdoctoral scientists, will be benefited by increasing their networks in the emerging field of plasma medicine and enhancing their leadership skills. In particular, one of the postdocs will be promoted as technology commercialization expert in this project. In addition, the successful implementation of the proposed project is ensured by the cooperation among the research partners, which constitute a highly qualified consortium with world-leading experts in plasma-material science and biomedical research.The proposed project merges novel engineering efforts towards a versatile plasma source and outstanding advances in surface treatment of biomaterials aiming to cancer therapy. The proposed project has an interdisciplinary nature and it has both fundamental and technological significances. The fundamental significance resides in exploring medical action of cold atmospheric plasmas, in particular plasma interaction with tumor and surgical margins. For this, a flexible, morphing plasma device adaptable to any surface topography will be fabricated. Also, a wide spectrum of diagnostic instrumentations, and chemical and biological sensors for in vitro tests will be employed, which basically constitutes the technological significance of the project. Plasma state will be characterized basically by optical plasma diagnostics. The monitoring of topographies by electron microscopy, as well as evaluation of the chemical composition and biological properties, will assess the end state of the treated surfaces. The main goal consists in uniform treatment of non-planar and delicate materials with the aim of biomedical applications, especially plasma treatment of organic tissues with focus on cancer therapy applications. In summary, this project will pioneer the treatment of complex geometry surfaces by means of an extended morphing plasma source, with emphasis on treatment of tumors and of surgical margins.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.