Plasma processing Science and Technology (PST) impacts Life Sciences in several ways, by producing established and newer processes and surfaces in the field of Biomedical Materials and by providing constant advancements toward newer clinical approaches and therapies in the field of Plasma Medicine, where Wound Healing and Cancer Treatments are probably the most challenging areas of interest. Decontamination and sterilization processes are also continuously developed in PST for the surface of biomedical devices as well as for biological targets such as biomolecules, bacteria, and viruses. Fields like Agriculture and Food Processing are also being impacted by PST with newer approaches that will certainly lead to newer commercial products in the future. With particular reference to cancer treatments, collaborations between plasma scientists and medical doctors are producing day by day newer advances and understanding in clinical approaches and therapies.

The rapid development of PST for Biomedical Life Sciences^[1, 2^] is attested by the continuously growing number of published papers and books on this hot topic, as evident since many years in Plasma Processes and Polymers, as well as in other journals devoted to PST.

Most, if not all, processes in Plasma Medicine deal with cold atmospheric plasmas (CAP) in gases, most often air, where reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) are generated, as they are able to interact with living targets in a predictable way when properly dosed, thus eliciting effects ranging from the activation of cells functionalities to cell death.^[3^] Newer direct and indirect CAP processes are being investigated and optimized constantly for wound healing and cancer treatments, where indirect treatments are applied to water‐based media to load them with RONS to be used later on biological targets. In this contest, evidently, learning how to optimize the “dose” of the various RONS in the plasma, in the treated liquids, and in cells and tissues, among other parameters, is crucial to the efficacy and to the selectivity of the treatments, especially when they have to be translated to the clinical practice in vivo. The field is in a rapid continuous development; several special issues of Plasma Processes and Polymers have been already organized on biomedical applications of cold plasmas during the life of the journal.

We are delighted to present this new special issue on Advanced Applications of Plasmas in Life Sciences, composed of three reviews, two expert opinion papers, two communications, and nine full papers, with most of them dealing with latest advancements in understanding the role of RONS in CAP processes for cancer treatments and decontamination of materials and biological tissues in Plasma Medicine. The manuscripts presented here clearly suggest how lively the field of Plasma Medicine is, with large room for interdisciplinary innovation.

The review by Dai et al.^[4^] initiates this issue and highlights the importance of carefully dosing the RONS produced in the CAP treatments as well as in the treated liquids to selectively stimulate desired biological events (e.g., apoptosis of cancer cells vs. healthy cells) among possible others, and it encourages scientists to develop suitable dosing metrics. The emerging role of CAP treatments against glioblastoma, the most common and lethal primary malignant brain tumor in adults, is discussed instead in the review by Zandsalimi et al.^[5^]

The issue of the penetration of RONS in the skin tissue is addressed in their paper by Duan et al.^[6^]; this is a relevant topic for the optimization of plasma processes in clinic. Satisfactory effects of plasma‐generated RONS on proteins are discussed in the two papers by Krewing et al.^[7^] and by Sasaki et al.^[8^] The effect of CAP treatments on leukemia cells and on mitochondria, instead, are reviewed in the papers by Turrini et al.^[9^] and Yan et al.^[10^] respectively. Nakamura et al.^[11^] described how tuning the relative flow rate of O₂ and N₂ in the feed of a novel plasma source can generate plasma‐activated media with different relative amounts of RONS, thus with different potential antitumor activities. In most papers of the issue, it is evidenced, in different ways, how plasma‐generated RONS can be possibly dosed to drive the red/ox biology of cells toward desired clinical effects.

One of the most exciting recent finding in CAP treatments in Oncology is that plasma treatments on cancer cells, beside other effects, indeed can stimulate the expression of markers that induce the immunogenic cell death via the activation of innate immune system of the host.^[12^] Pieces of evidence of the efficacy of nonthermal plasmas as immunogenic cell death inducers are discussed in the review by Mohamed et al.,^[13^] where the fascinating hypothesis of vaccinating people against cancer is discussed, as well as in the expert opinion paper by Witzke et al.^[14^]

The issue of antivirus/bacteria material surfaces and of decontamination processes of materials by CAP and by any other mean is of paramount importance nowadays, and it will certainly increase importance in the future, due to obvious reasons connected with the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. This editorial is being written at a time, September 2020, when the aforementioned pandemic has already infected more than 28 million of people and killed about 900,000 people worldwide,^[15^] with unprecedented impact on all human activities. Unfortunately, these numbers are going to increase, at least till a proper vaccination strategy is realized at a global level.

Plasma processes already gained a relevant position among decontamination/sterilization tools in Life Sciences. For this reason, the collection of papers presented in this special issue includes also contributions toward CAP decontamination processes. The inactivation of viruses with CAP processes is addressed by the communication of Bisag et al.,^[16^] where inactivation processes of aerosol microdroplets containing bacteria and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 RNA are described, and by the paper of Nayak et al.^[17^] The paper by Ibis et al.,^[18^] instead, deals with the CAP inactivation of bacterial biofilm in endotracheal tubes for preventing ventilator‐associated pneumonia, whereas the communication by Tanaka et al.^[19^] describes CAP inactivation processes of mold spores. The manuscript of Sysolyatina et al.^[20^] deals with the CAP synthesis of plasma‐activated water mist with antibacterial properties.

The last, but not the least, paper of this collection is the visionary expert opinion by Liu et al.^[21^] where opportunities and forecasts are presented for PST in Plasma Medicine for the next years. All manuscripts collected in this special issue indicate, with no doubts, how PST in Biomedical Life Sciences is constantly advancing toward newer processes, approaches, plasma sources, and plasma‐based therapies. We believe that this highly interdisciplinary scientific area, with so many challenging and promising forecasts for PST in strategic fields of Biology and Medicine, will provide plasma scientists with many tasks and targets for the days to come.

At the end of this editorial, we would like to sincerely and warmly thank all the authors for their valuable contributions, the reviewers of the manuscripts for their timely and competent work, and all the readership of Plasma Processes and Polymers for their constant appreciation.

等离子体处理科学与技术（PST）通过在生物医学材料领域产生已建立的和较新的过程和表面，以及在伤口愈合的等离子医学领域向更新的临床方法和疗法不断发展，以多种方式影响生命科学。癌症治疗可能是最具挑战性的领域。在PST中，生物医学设备的表面以及诸如生物分子，细菌和病毒等生物目标的去污和灭菌工艺也在不断发展。PST也对农业和食品加工等领域产生了影响，它们采用了更新的方法，这些方法肯定会在将来带来更新的商业产品。特别提到癌症治疗，

PST在生物医学生命科学领域的快速发展^[ 1、2 ^]证明了这一热门话题的论文和书籍的不断增长，这在等离子体工艺和聚合物以及致力于该领域的其他期刊已有多年了。太平洋标准时间。

血浆医学中的大多数（如果不是全部）过程处理气体（通常是空气）中的冷大气等离子体（CAP），在该气体中会生成活性氧和氮物质（RONS），因为它们能够以可预测的方式与生命目标相互作用当适当地给药时，因此引起从激活细胞功能到细胞死亡的作用。^[ 3 ^]正在针对伤口愈合和癌症治疗不断研究和优化较新的直接和间接CAP工艺，其中将间接治疗应用于水基介质，以将其装载到RONS中，稍后再用于生物靶标。显然，在这场竞赛中，学习如何优化血浆，处理液以及细胞和组织中各种RONS的“剂量”，以及其他参数，对于治疗的功效和选择性至关重要，特别是在必须将其转换为体内临床实践时。该领域正在快速持续发展。在该期刊的使用期内，已经针对冷等离子体的生物医学应用组织了《等离子体工艺和聚合物》的一些特殊刊物。

我们很高兴介绍有关生命科学中等离子体的高级应用的新专刊，该专刊由三篇评论，两篇专家意见论文，两篇通讯和九篇全文组成，其中大多数涉及了解RONS的作用方面的最新进展。在血浆医学中用于癌症治疗以及材料和生物组织去污的CAP工艺中。此处介绍的手稿清楚地表明了血浆医学领域的活跃性以及跨学科创新的巨大空间。

戴等人的评论。^[ 4 ^]引发了这个问题，并强调了小心地剂量在CAP治疗以及处理过的液体中产生的RONS的重要性，以选择性刺激所需的生物学事件（例如，癌细胞与健康细胞的凋亡），以及它鼓励科学家制定合适的剂量指标。Zandsalimi等人在综述中讨论了CAP治疗针对成胶质细胞瘤（成人中最常见和致命的原发性恶性脑肿瘤）的新兴作用。^[ 5 ^]

Duan等人在他们的论文中解决了RONS在皮肤组织中的渗透问题。^[ 6 ^] ; 这是优化临床血浆工艺的一个相关主题。血浆生成的RONS对蛋白质的满意效果在Krewing等人的两篇论文中进行了讨论。^[ 7 ^]和Sasaki等。^[ 8 ^]相反，Turrini等人的论文综述了CAP治疗对白血病细胞和线粒体的影响。^[ 9 ^]和Yan等。^[ 10 ^]。中村等。^[ 11 ^]他描述了如何调节新型血浆源进料中O ₂和N ₂的相对流速如何产生具有不同相对RONS量，从而具有不同潜在抗肿瘤活性的血浆活化培养基。在该问题的大多数论文中，都以不同的方式证明了血浆生成的RONS可以如何计量以驱动细胞的氧化/氧化生物学达到所需的临床效果。

肿瘤学中CAP治疗中最令人兴奋的最新发现之一是，对癌细胞的血浆治疗除具有其他作用外，确实可以刺激标记物的表达，这些标记物通过激活宿主的先天免疫系统来诱导免疫原性细胞死亡。^[ 12 ^]  Mohamed等人在综述中讨论了非热血浆作为免疫原性细胞死亡诱导剂功效的证据，^[ 13 ^]讨论了为人们接种抗癌疫苗的迷人假设以及专家意见。 Witzke等人的论文。^[ 14 ^]

如今，CAP的抗病毒/细菌材料表面问题以及材料的去污过程以及任何其他方式的问题至关重要，由于与2019年冠状病毒病大流行有关的明显原因，它在未来肯定会越来越重要。撰写这篇社论的时间是2020年9月，当时上述大流行已经在全世界感染了超过2800万人，并杀死了约90万人，^[ 15 ^]对所有人类活动都产生了前所未有的影响。不幸的是，至少在全球范围内实现适当的疫苗接种策略之前，这些数字将会增加。

在生命科学的去污/消毒工具中，等离子体工艺已经占据了重要位置。因此，本期特刊中的论文集还包括对CAP净化过程的贡献。Bisag等人^[ 16 ^]的通讯解决了通过CAP过程使病毒失活的问题，其中描述了含有细菌和严重急性呼吸系统综合症冠状病毒2 RNA的气溶胶微滴的失活过程，以及Nayak等人的论文。^[ 17 ^] Ibis等人的论文，^[ 18 ^]相反，处理气管插管中细菌生物膜的CAP失活可预防呼吸机相关性肺炎，而Tanaka等人则进行了沟通。^[ 19 ^]描述了霉菌孢子的CAP灭活过程。Sysolyatina等的手稿。^[ 20 ^]处理具有抗菌特性的等离子活化水雾的CAP合成。

该集合的最后但并非最不重要的论文是Liu等人的有远见的专家意见。^[ 21 ^]提出了未来几年血浆医学中PST的机会和预测。毫无疑问，本期特刊中收集的所有手稿都表明，生物医学生命科学中的PST如何不断向更新的工艺，方法，血浆来源和基于血浆的疗法发展。我们相信，这一高度跨学科的科学领域，在生物学和医学战略领域对PST的挑战性和前途无量，因此将为血浆科学家提供许多未来的任务和目标。

在这篇社论的最后，我们要衷心和热情地感谢所有作者的宝贵贡献，稿件的审阅者的及时和称职的工作，以及等离子工艺和聚合物的所有读者的不断赞赏。