ROS from Physical Plasmas: Redox Chemistry for Biomedical Therapy

Figure 2

Heat map of the current state of knowledge of cold plasmas for biomedicine. Blue: known and well-characterized commercial plasma sources (left) and reported effects of plasma therapies in in vivo models and human patients (right). Yellow: many biologically relevant plasma-generated ROS in air or in liquids have been described (left); however, it is still a challenge to tune the setups to deliver specific ROS mixes for different biomedical applications. In the same way, multiple effects of plasma in cells have been reported, yet the mechanisms of action of plasma-generated ROS in cells has not been fully unraveled (right). Red: the current bottleneck in the field is the little information available on how to use plasma to activate specific signalling pathways and evoke a desired effect in cells to design better and more effective therapies.