New paper on the use of Injectable Plasma-Treated Alginate Hydrogel to induce immunogenic cell death in osteosarcoma

PlasmaMed Lab reseachers Milica Zivanic (PhD), Albert Espona-Noguera (Postdoc Fellow) and Cristina Canal (PI), in collaboration with researchers Hanne Verswyvel, Evelien Smits, Annemie Bogaerts and Abraham Lin from the Center for Oncological Research (CORE) of the University of Antwerpen (Belgium), have published the paper "Injectable Plasma-Treated Alginate Hydrogel for Oxidative Stress Delivery to Induce Immunogenic Cell Death in Osteosarcoma" on Advanced Functional Materials.

In the recently published paper, Zivanic et al. combine alginate polymer with cold plasma to obtain an injectable plasma-treated hydrogel (PTH) loaded with oxidant molecules. Such PTH may be used for minimally invasive and local delivery of oxidative stress to a tumor site inside the body. Alginate PTH could release plasma-derived oxidants to kill osteosarcoma cells. Importantly, PTH treatment was immunogenic – meaning that it promoted the release of danger signals from dying cancer cells which led to their enhanced phagocytotic uptake by dendritic cells. These results establish PTH as a novel plasma treatment modality that may broaden the clinical utility of plasma.