There's video at PopSci.com.
And here I bought a sonic toothbrush. Oh well. Now even toothbrushes are subject to obsolescence. Cool stuff, though. (So, to speak!)
Posted on 06/13/2009 8:49:41 AM PDT by Reaganesque
Though it looks like a tiny purple blowtorch, a pencil-sized plume of plasma on the tip of a small probe remains at room temperature as it swiftly dismantles tough bacterial colonies deep inside a human tooth.
It’s not another futuristic product of George Lucas’ imagination—it’s the exciting work of USC School of Dentistry and USC Viterbi School of Engineering researchers looking for new ways to safely fight tenacious biofilm infections in patients.
Two of the study’s authors are Chunqi Jiang, a research assistant professor in the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical Engineering-Electrophysics, and Parish Sedghizadeh, assistant professor of clinical dentistry and director of the USC Center for Biofilms. “Nanosecond Pulsed Plasma Dental Probe” appears in the June issue of Plasma Processes and Polymers.
Sedghizadeh explained that biofilms are complex colonies of bacteria suspended in a slimy matrix that grants them added protection from conventional antibiotics. Biofilms are responsible for many hard-to-fight infections in the mouth and elsewhere. But in the study, biofilms cultivated in the root canal of extracted human teeth were easily destroyed with the plasma dental probe, as evidenced by scanning electron microscope images of near-pristine tooth surfaces after plasma treatment.
Plasma, the fourth state of matter, consists of electrons, ions and neutral species and is the most common form found in space, stars and lightning, Jiang said. But while many natural plasmas are hot, or thermal, the probe developed for the study is a non-thermal, room-temperature plasma that’s safe to touch. The researchers placed temperature sensors on the extracted teeth before treatment and found that the temperature of the tooth increased just five degrees after 10 minutes of exposure to the plasma, Jiang said.
The cooler nature of the experimental plasma comes from its pulsed power supply. Instead of employing a steady stream of energy to the probe, the pulsed power supply sends 100-nanosecond pulses of several kilovolts to the probe once every millisecond, with an average power less than two watts, Jiang said.
“Atomic oxygen [a single atom of oxygen, instead of the more common O2 molecule] appears to be the antibacterial agent,” according to plasma emission spectroscopy obtained during the experiments, she said.
Sedghizadeh said the oxygen-free radicals might be disrupting the cellular membranes of the biofilms in order to cause their demise and that the plasma plume’s adjustable, fluid reach allowed the disinfection to occur even in the hardest-to-reach areas of the root canal. Given that preliminary research indicates that non-thermal plasma is safe for surrounding tissues, Sedghizadeh said he was optimistic about its future dental and medical uses.
“Plasma is the future,” Sedghizadeh said. “It’s been used before for other sterilization purposes but not for clinical medical applications, and we hope to be the first to apply it in a clinical setting.”
“We believe we’re the first team to apply plasma for biofilm disinfection in root canals,” Jiang added. “This collaboration is unique. We’re attacking frontier problems, and we’re happy to be broadening our fields.”
There's video at PopSci.com.
And here I bought a sonic toothbrush. Oh well. Now even toothbrushes are subject to obsolescence. Cool stuff, though. (So, to speak!)
DentiZot.
If you want more bacteria death, use Dr. Tichners, just ask the Clinton mafia, they used it even to kill people, and you can get it at the grocery store.
interesting.
Wonder what this will do for those that have periodontal disease?
The battery in my Sonicare is about to wear out. I want one of these for Christmas.
“....Chunqi Jiang, Parish Sedghizadeh,....”
Do we no longer have ANY native born Americans in the fields of science?
What about those of us who don't wish to extract their teeth?
In the video, the dentist sticks his finger under the flame and holds it there. So, inside the mouth shouldn’t be a problem. But hey, this could be good news for denture wearers!
“What about those of us who don’t wish to extract their teeth?”
You may have them extracted with or without your permission, given the tendencies in this country.
If you are good little test subjects, they will be reinserted after treatment, THEN a root canal will be done.
I bet this Chinese and this Iranian come from cultures that respect education more.
***Do we no longer have ANY native born Americans in the fields of science?***
Nope. It was easier to leave high school and go directly into the automotive sector, making 40 smackers an hour for nearly 5 minutes worth of work an hour, with as much overtime as you could eat.
And now, it’s easier to collect unemployment and bitch about how the government is not doing enough for the common man. My wife’s stepfather is retired UAW (GM) and he has had some indication that the UAW leadership is about to pull the plug on their retirement. They’ve already lost medical and dental. Now, they’re really going to get it out of their monthly benefits.
He was a driver and made half again as much as I do.
Cool.
Do we no longer have ANY native born Americans in the fields of science?
Did you check if these two are foreign born or are you just going by their names? It's too bad we don't have native scientists like back in the days of Albert Einstein, Nikolai Tesla and even as far back as Alexandar Graham Bell. Oh, uhm...
Clinton mafia used Dr. Tichners? Interesting. . .thought provoking. . .
Probably very little, as it does nothing for anywhere other than the surface of the tooth above the gumline.
I eliminated periodontal disease from my vocabulary (and I had LOTS of problems, despite regular brushing and lossing) with a very simple approach that anyone can use.
Go to your local sewing store and buy a skien of nine-strand embroidery thread (the kind that comes wrapped like shoelaces). Then go to your local drugstore and buy a spool of fine, unwaxed dental floss, and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
Take the skien of embroidery thread and cut across one end, so you have "half-loops" of embroidery thread. Now cut off about eighteen inches of dental floss, double it, and knot the free ends, forming a full loop. Wrap the dental floss around whichever "anchor finger" you normally use while flossing (the end with the knot should be next to the finger, with the loop end hanging free). "Thread" the half-loop of embroidery thread through the open loop of the dental floss with the ends dangling. Dip the embroidery thread in the hydrogen peroxide.
Now, thread the dental floss between two teeth, and use it to pull the embroidery thread into the gap between the teeth (the embroidery thread is too wide to slide through the small gap at the top of teeth, but the gap is wider at the bottom). "Rub" the peroxide-coated e-thread on the surface of the teeth right at (and as far below) the gum-line as you can stand). Curve the e-thread around as much tooth surface as convenient---you can't get it all, but capillary action "draws" some peroxide along the rest of the gum-line
Switch to the next pair of teeth. Refresh the hydrogen peroxide dip after doing a quadrant of your teeth.
This also works with Listerine, or as a poster up-thread recommended, Dr. Tichenor's (and I suspect anything that kills bacteria will work). My wife prefers Listerine.
I have now used this approach for quite a few years, and i have ZERO problems with gums. In fact, my dental technician regularly tells me what great shape they're in.
But before finding this, I was the "poster-boy" for bleeding gums when getting teeth cleaned (which I was having done every four months instead of every six). I had also tried the e-thread/floss trick without the peroxide, and it just simply isn't even remotely as effective.
And yes, this is all anecdotal data, but I have gone "on and off" using the peroxide as a statistical data gathering approach, and the difference is VERY reproducible.
Who caries about what they do or show on that wymyn's cable channel....
Next thing you know, they’ll say is they should have their own schools!
Really cool, but we won’t see it for 20 years in the marketplace, if ever.
That’s what happens to these cool discoveries......we never actually get to reap the benefits (well, very, very rarely....).
For example, 15 years ago a family was discovered with a special kind of plaque-killing gene. They could eat anything and have a heart as healthy as a horse. That was supposed to come out as medicine in about 2000. The rights have been transferred to a new company now, so who knows how many decades before any drugs arise from it.
Millions will die in the meantime.
That’s what happens with virtually every one of these types of scientific discoveries....basically NOTHING.
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