三阴型乳腺癌富含肿瘤干细胞、缺少低毒且有效的靶向疗法。低温常压等离子体（CAP）可以选择性杀伤多种肿瘤细胞，然而其抗癌机理与适用范围尚不明确。本项目拟确定CAP选择性杀伤三阴型乳腺癌细胞的作用机理、探索基于CAP的肿瘤诊疗策略。我们在前期研究中发现CAP可以特异性诱导三阴型乳腺癌细胞凋亡，因此提出“CAP靶向肿瘤干细胞”的科学假说，然后针对该假说研究CAP靶向乳腺癌干细胞的作用效果与机理、探索提高CAP抗癌效果的药物与联用策略、挖掘CAP疗法敏感肿瘤检测标志物。该项目旨在通过将网络构建等生物信息学方法与CRISPR等分子生物学技术相结合，借助PDX动物模型阐明CAP通过靶向肿瘤干性选择性杀伤三阴型乳腺癌细胞的作用机理，开拓基于CAP的物理靶向抗癌创新知识体系，解决以三阴型乳腺癌为代表的“高干性”肿瘤诊疗难题，是等离子体技术在肿瘤领域的一项重要创新实践，将大大推动精准医疗事业的发展。

Triple negative breast tumors are enriched with cancer stem cells and lack effective therapies having little side effects. Cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) can selectively kill multiple types of cancer cells, but the anti-cancer mechanism of CAP and the spectrum of tumors sensitive to CAP treatment remain to be illucidated. This project aims at unveiling the efficacies and mechanism of CAP in selectively targeting triple negative breast cancer cells and establish CAP-based diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for cancer control. Our previous results showed that CAP could selectively induce the apoptosis of triple negative breast cancer cells as compared with the other subtypes which are enriched with cancer stem cells, we thus hypothesized that cancer stem cells are more sensitive to CAP treatment than bulk tumor cells. According to this hypothesis, we are interested to explore the efficacy and mechanism of CAP in selectively killing breast cancer stem cells, investigate drugs potentially enhancing the selectivity or efficacy of CAP against cancer and strategies creating such synergies, and explore markers diagnostic of tumors feasible for CAP treatment. This project aims at joining approaches such as network construction from the bioinformatics field and CRISPR technique from the molecular biology domain, as well as taking advantages of PDX animal models, to unveil mechanisms leading to the selective killing of breast cancer stem cells by CAP and establish a CAP-based novel knowledge system for cancer management. This project is an innovative practice of plasma medicine in tumor biology that will significantly contribute to the development of precision medicine worldwide.