One paper in the whole corpus names it in the title — against 2,026 on killing microbes.
Cold plasma kills bacteria extremely well; that is the single most reproduced finding in the field. A 2025 study on plasma-activated water in the mouth did check effects on beneficial species (Streptococcus salivarius, Lactobacillus acidophilus) alongside pathogens. That is roughly the extent of it.
What cold plasma does to the bacteria you want — the community living on healthy skin. For anything skin-related this is a first-order question, and it has barely been asked.
“We know it kills the bad bugs. Almost nobody has checked what it does to the good ones.”
Microbiome swab kits are cheap and commercially available. Before and after is genuinely interesting content.
This is the question a dermatology researcher would actually want to answer. Fundable and overdue.
This is an extract. The full picture is in The Open Field — or start at the library index.
Cold Plasma Research Library. Compiled from Europe PMC and ClinicalTrials.gov, September 2026 — 4,846 cold plasma papers, 662 on plasma-activated water, 52 registered trials. Counts are title-restricted and therefore floors, not ceilings: a low number means barely anyone has made this their subject, not that nobody has ever looked.
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