Chronic wounds, such as diabetic foot ulcers, can present a significant challenge for health care providers. For patients with diabetes, impaired blood flow to extremities and weakened immune responses make it difficult to fight off infections. Once infected, these wounds can progress rapidly, sometimes leading to amputations. Existing treatments, such as wound dressings, irrigation and invasive surgeries, often fail to combat infections effectively, leaving many wounds almost impossible to heal.
To potentially help tackle this issue, Penn State startup Fourth State Therapeutics is working to commercialize a cold plasma-based technology called the Plasma Patch. Founder and recent biomedical engineering doctoral graduate Ali Kazemi developed the patch with colleagues while completing his doctorate. He said the Plasma Patch is designed with the intention to reduce infections while simultaneously accelerating the healing process by priming the wound for recovery.
Realizing the business potential of the Plasma Patch, Kazemi and co-founder Sean Knecht, associate research professor of engineering design, applied for the Invent Penn State Summer Founders Program. The summer-long program provides student startups with $15,000 in funding to work on their startup idea full-time over the summer in State College.
"Coming out of academia and grad school, transitioning to a business mindset can mean a huge shift in your approach," Kazemi said. "The biggest challenge we were tackling through that program was learning how to test our ideas and hypotheses about where this product could be applied. That was probably our first hurdle."
Through Summer Founders, Fourth State Therapeutics narrowed down its target market, gained insights into running a business and officially launched the company. The other co-founders include Sven Bilén, professor of engineering design, electrical and aerospace engineering in the Penn State College of Engineering, and Ian Gilchrist, emeritus professor of medicine at Penn State College of Medicine.
Kazemi said he researched cold plasma and its potential medical applications throughout his time completing his undergraduate and doctoral studies in the Cross-disciplinary Laboratory for Integrated Plasma Science and Engineering (CLIPSE) at Penn State, leading to developing the Plasma Patch.
"We have a great device and technology that can make a meaningful impact," Kazemi said. "With this, we can see our research creating real change in real time, which can be challenging with academic research. We saw an opportunity and decided to move forward with it."
Cold plasma technology works by ionizing gas to produce what is known as reactive species - such as hydrogen peroxide - to cause reactions in the contained environment, which can destroy pathogens. Unlike antibiotics, which pathogens can develop resistance against, bacteria exposed to cold plasma are significantly less likely to adapt to its effects, the researchers said. The reactive species essentially attack the cell membranes of harmful microbes and break them down, leading to inactivation.
This unique approach could have implications beyond chronic wounds, according to Kazemi.
"Trauma or military wounds, due to the way they occur, are also highly susceptible to infection," Kazemi said, explaining that the Plasma Patch could provide an effective solution for to more quickly and completely heal such injuries.
After completing the Summer Founders Program, Kazemi continued his entrepreneurial journey through the Invent Penn State NSF I-Corps Short Course, a program designed to help researchers conduct customer interviews and prepare them to move on to the NSF I-Corps National Teams program.
"I-Corps focuses on customer discovery and market research, and it's amazing that we have a local chapter at Penn State," Kazemi said. "A key takeaway was learning how to ask the right questions to test our hypotheses. One of the biggest challenges I-Corps helped us overcome was rapid learning of the industry and finding new ways to connect with people."
Those interested can apply to the February NSF I-Corps Short Course by Friday, Jan. 31.
Right now, Kazemi said, Fourth State is focused on transitioning from their benchtop prototype to a more commercial design of the Plasma Patch, as well as pursuing various funding and investment opportunities. Kazemi estimates Plasma Patch, which currently has a provisional patent, has two to five years of development left before pursuing trials for approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
"Anyone within Penn State who is thinking about entrepreneurship should really go through all the programs Invent Penn State has to offer, especially Summer Founders Program," Kazemi said. "There are other programs at Happy Valley LaunchBox powered by PNC Bank that can help get you ready for Summer Founders Program, and then during Summer Founders, you can really focus on growing your venture and get the opportunity to meet with a lot of great entrepreneurs who have a wealth of knowledge to share with you."
About the Summer Founders Program
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This project was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Community & Economic Development.
