Physical plasma, the so-called fourth aggregate state of matter, has been finding its way into medicine for some years now. Clinical successes are increasingly being recorded, particularly in the healing of chronic wounds. The effectiveness is based, among other things, on the ability of cold physical plasma to effectively kill pathogens and thus combat wound infection.
Preventing and combating infections has become increasingly important due to the Covid-19 pandemic. More than ever, new measures and approaches are needed to protect people and healthcare systems from the consequences of the pandemic. Cold physical plasma can also play a role here. The effectiveness of plasma against a wide range of microorganisms, including multi-resistant pathogens, has been proven many times over. In contrast, there are comparatively few studies on its effectiveness against viruses.
In Greifswald, it has now been shown that the ability of viruses to penetrate cells is significantly reduced after contact with a newly developed plasma jet. In the specific experiment, hepatitis viruses from mice (MHV-A59-eGFP), which belong to the group of corona viruses, were treated. The effect is due to free radicals formed by the plasma. Prof. Dr. Thomas von Woedtke, Head of Plasma Medicine at the Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology e.V. (INP), comments: "Our goal is a plasma device that can be used to combat viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 directly on the oral mucosa. The laboratory results are an important step in this direction. We were able to identify the mechanism of virus inactivation. This allows us to derive a number of new, innovative approaches for the treatment and prevention of pandemics and infections in general." The study, which was recently published in the journal "Free Radical in Biology & Medicine" was conducted as part of the project "PlasmaplusCorona - Plasma-based disinfection of the respiratory tract to reduce the SARS-CoV-2 viral load in vitro and in vivo", which has been funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) since 2021, in which a research consortium with the Leibniz Institute of Virology (LIV, Hamburg) and the Leibniz Lung Center (FZB, Borstel) under the leadership of the INP is researching a technical solution for the local treatment of the virus-infected respiratory tract.
D.M. Mrochen, L. Miebach, H. Skowski, R. Bansemer, C.A. Drechsler, M. Hein, U. Mamat, T. Gerling, U. Schaible, T. von Woedtke, S. Bekeschus. Toxicity and virucidal activity of a neon-driven micro plasma jet on eukaryotic cells and a coronavirus. Free Radical Biology and Medicine (2022), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2022.08.026
