Inaugural lectures
Wednesday 27th October at 5pm - Lecture Theatre T.0.03, Wolfson Building
Plasma Medicine – from electrically triggered sparks to new healthcare therapies
Professor Michael Kong, Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Gas plasmas represent the fourth state of matter. They can produce a cocktail of highly reactive species, charged particles, and photons near room temperature and in open air, thus enabling a cascade of chemical reactions with proteins, lipids, cells and living tissues.
Such plasmas are known as cold atmospheric plasmas (CAP), and can be generated over a length scale from as small as a bacterial cell to as large as a pharmaceutical manufacturing chamber. Depending on their doses, CAPs trigger distinct effects from stimulated cell proliferation, inactivation of pathogens, and programmed death of cancer cells.
These effects are being exploited for a number of electrically triggered therapies including skin disinfection, wound healing, and tumour reduction. Gas plasmas also offer a new route to addressing the growing concern of drug resistance.
This lecture will review scientific facts, success application examples in healthcare, and future challenges and opportunities.