Next in the "Can Plasma?" series: can plasma kill prions? The honest answer is yes at high doses — and at low doses, the result scared me off the topic.

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 The question: do you know how to kill prion disease?

00:13 Quick intro — Greg Friedman, plasma bioengineer

00:27 The question in full: "Dear Gregory…"

00:36 What prions actually are — misfolded, self-replicating proteins

00:46 Why prions meet my definition of "alive"

01:20 What happens to an infected human or animal (spongiform degeneration)

01:53 The problem: prions are absurdly tough

02:05 Why proteins are harder to kill than bacteria

02:12 What prions survive: autoclaves, UV, bleach, hydrogen peroxide

02:31 Our research collaboration with a New York researcher and her mouse model

03:09 What we found

03:13 "Scared the shit out of me"

03:15 High dose result: plasma destroys everything (carbon → CO₂ + water)

03:35 LOW dose result: prion activity more than tripled

03:48 Plasma can supercharge prions at sublethal doses

04:13 Why "kills half" is fine for most pathogens — but catastrophic for prions

04:31 The dead ones stayed dead. The survivors became far more infectious.

04:39 Mechanism: unknown

04:43 We didn't get funding to follow up

04:48 Why I'm personally uneasy continuing this work

05:06 So — can plasma kill prions?

05:39 A career-worthy open research question

05:42 Wrap-up — keep the "Can Plasma?" questions coming

If you're a neuroscientist, virologist, or biophysicist looking for a high-impact and underexplored research problem — this is the episode.

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