I agree with Eric- big implications, along with Janet's Sharklet forward (and the myriad of other antibacterial metallic compounds out there), make for a greater possibility of mitigating our losing fight with bacteria.
Out in our neck of the woods, the Black Canyon Infectious Disease Forecasting Station has produced hundreds of forecast libraries for our pathogen-antibiotic resistance pairs. How we use this information is to forecast 5 to 10 years out where the current trends of antimicrobial resistance is taking us. Those of us who are Trekkies call the process "frequency-modulated shielding for the hospital". What is interesting is our patterns are highly local-specific. Meaning, if you use standard antibiotic references in the clinic such as the Sanford Guide to Antimicrobial Therapy, you would be grossly misled in terms of what antibiotics are effective against, say, Pseudomonas. Most physicians do not use local antibiograms, and we are the first (to our knowledge) to incorporate forecasting in the decision process of what antibiotics to allow for use in the hospital.
Couple this to better technology to facilitate decreased fomite / hand / inanimate surface-based transmission, and you have some powerful defenses.
BUT- here's the bad news. After dealing with the worst RSV season ever documented at our hospital, we noted horrendous variance and ignorance when it came to infection control. We saw many a nurse walk right into an RSV-positive child's room without gown / gloves / mask, use their own stethoscope (the same one used for multiple patients), and walk right out without washing hands. And this was in the midst of them seeing us intubate and transfer kids who had crashed on the floor, several of whom were coinfected with Hemophilus influenzae (!) In other words, bad human behavior trumps technology more often than we like, even when reminded repeatedly of the proper procedures…
If it takes 5 min to achieve adequate sterilization of hands, it may be too much time for your average healthcare provider given IF they use hand sanitizer, it is applied within seconds. One thought I DO like is the notion of connecting the technology to a timer / alarm so that if the patient does not hear the alarm go off, they know their provider is being unsafe with them…
Cheers,Jim
James M. Wilson V, M.D.
On Apr 5, 2012, at 1:01 PM, Rasmussen Eric MD, MDM, FACP D wrote:Colleagues,
This article you've sent, Sam, may be something very unusual. Thank you, and my thanks to the National Defense University assessment team.
I don't respond to Sam's mailings often, but I always appreciate the selections - the article-to-article value is consistently high for me and, as a general statement, this is a very useful service you're providing.
But I wanted to take an extra moment to note that this mailing, this specific article, is one of the most fascinating things I've seen in a long time and perhaps needs to be shared more broadly to get some other opinions.
This appears to be truly revolutionary technology, and that's rather rare. If it works as billed, and at the price-point listed, using the methods described, this will be something very new.
As you each probably realize, this is needed all over the globe, in dozens of industries (food, water, medical, domestic service in India, sanitation, sports, communications tools like cell phone and keypad contamination, outdoor recreation, cruise lines, warships, checkout lines, post offices, manufacturing plants, agriculture, shipping, logistics hubs (anthrax WILL almost certainly be susceptible to this process, as will cholera, as will Clostridum difficile in hospital ICUs, and E. coli O-157 in meat processing and vegetable imports) and the list goes on. Dave and Pete and Mike, cc'd here, will probably be all over this.
As a former Chair of a Department of Medicine and director of an ICU for years, I've learned that biofilms - a relatively new subject for both cultivation and disinfection - are highly resistant to elimination by conventional methods and cause increasingly severe problems as biofilm-forming community-acquired bugs contaminate hospitals and clinics. This technology could be very helpful.
As you probably all recognize, we face daunting issues associated with bacterial, viral, and fungal resistance to conventional antibiosis, and most of the available disinfectants are either intrinsically toxic to humans so used with a narrow therapeutic index, or unpleasant and so used reluctantly by staff, or inconvenient and so not used at all. This technology, though, can be a passive system, plasma-based, creating highly reactive metabolites not susceptible to resistance because the disruptions are apparently atomic, not molecular. It's not UV based, and it's cheap, portable, seems localizable for manufacturing, and is apparently safe to a first approximation. My.
This is really very very cool. It's also published in a reputable, peer-reviewed international science journal, by an international research team (none of whom are US...rats) so it's likely to work as advertised, even before commercialization efficiencies discover unsuspected opportunities.
(Lin, if we ever needed to strengthen the argument for STEAM, this is the kind of thing that might help shape the Academy perspective…)
I'll go find Ostrikov and start the conversation, just to learn more, but I'd bet he has VCs and Angels and Sovereign Wealth funds crawling all over him today - this was published yesterday, so two days ago in Australia. We'll be late to the conversation.
Great call, Sam. This seems worth following, and it's genuinely exciting for me, but I'd welcome other opinions that might tell me I've misunderstood something fundamental.
Eric
_____________________________
Eric Rasmussen, MD, MDM, FACP
VP, Humanitarian Systems
AccessAgility
and
Research Professor
Environmental Security and Global Medicine
San Diego State University
On Apr 5, 2012, at 10:26 AM, Bendett, Samuel (CIV US NDU/CTNSP) wrote:
Handheld plasma flashlight rids skin of pathogens
Published 5 April 2012 http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20120405-handheld-plasma-flashlight-rids-skin-of-pathogens
Scientists develop a handheld, battery-powered plasma-producing device that can rid skin of bacteria in an instant; the device could be used in ambulance emergency calls, natural disaster sites, military combat operations, and many other instances where treatment is required in remote locations
A group of Chinese and Australian scientists have developed a handheld, battery-powered plasma-producing device that can rid skin of bacteria in an instant. The device could be used in ambulance emergency calls, natural disaster sites, military combat operations, and many other instances where treatment is required in remote locations.
An Institute of Physics (IOP) release reports that the plasma flashlight is described by the researchers in IOP Publishing’s Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics. It is driven by a 12-V battery and does not require any external generator or wall power; it also does not require any external gas feed or handling system. In the experiment, the plasma flashlight effectively inactivated a thick biofilm of one of the most antibiotic- and heat-resistant bacteria, Enterococcus faecalis — a bacterium which often infects the root canals during dental treatments.
The biofilms were created by incubating the bacteria for seven days. The biofilms were around twenty-five micrometres thick and consisted of 17 different layers of bacteria. Each one was treated for five minutes with the plasma flashlight and then analyzed to see how much of the bacteria survived. Results showed that the plasma not only inactivated the top layer of cells, but penetrated deep into the very bottom of the layers to kill the bacteria. Co-author of the study, Professor Kostya (Ken) Ostrikov, from the Plasma Nanoscience Center Australia, CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, said: “The bacteria form thick biofilms, which makes them enormously resistant against inactivation which is extremely difficult to implement. High temperatures are commonly used but they would obviously burn our skin.
“In this study we chose an extreme example to demonstrate that the plasma flashlight can be very effective even at room temperature. For individual bacteria, the inactivation time could be just tens of seconds.” The release notes that plasma — the fourth state of matter in addition to solids, liquids, and gases — has previously shown its worth in the medical industry by effectively killing bacteria and viruses on the surface of the skin and in water.
Although the exact mechanism behind the anti-bacterial effect of plasma is largely unknown, it is thought that reactions between the plasma and the air surrounding it create a cocktail of reactive species that are similar to the ones found in our own immune system. The researchers ran an analysis to see what species were present in the plasma and found that highly reactive nitrogen- and oxygen-related species dominated the results. Ultraviolet radiation has also been theorized as a reason behind plasma’s success; however, this was shown to be low in the jet created by the plasma flashlight, adding to the safety aspect of the device.
The temperature of the plume of plasma in the experiments was between 20-230C, which is very close to room temperature and therefore prevents any damage to the skin. The device itself is fitted with resistors to stop it heating up and making it safe to touch. “The device can be easily made and costs less than 100 US dollars to produce. Of course, some miniaturization and engineering design may be needed to make it more appealing and ready for commercialization,” Ostrikov continued. The device was created by an international team of researchers from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, the University of Sydney, and the City University of Hong Kong.
— Read more in X Pei et al., “Inactivation of a 25.5 µm Enterococcus faecalis biofilm by a room-temperature, battery-operated, handheld air plasma jet,” Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics 45, no. 16 (4 April 2012) ( doi:10.1088/0022-3727/45/16/165205)
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