Ultrashort-Pulse Laser Shatters Viruses
A father and Son team have devised a revolutionary laser method that disintegrates viruses without damaging surrounding cells.
Johns Hopkins University student Shaw-Wei David Tsen was looking for a new way to rid isolated blood of pathogens such as the HIV and hepatitis C viruses. Current virucidal methods based on ultraviolet irradiation often damage blood components.
With his father, physicist and laser expert Kong-Thon Tsen, they developed a technique using ultrashort-pulse lasers to create a forced resonance in the virus shell. The laser pulse mechanically vibrates the capsid shell of a virus, which then shatters it, leaving behind a harmless debris of just component molecules. Ultrashort-pulse lasers (USPs) do not generate much heat, and tests have already shown that viral capsid shells will disintegrate at energies far lower than that which would harm adjacent cells.
They first considered using ultrasound resonance, but Kong-Thon Tsen, a laser expert at Arizon State University realized that lasers are better at penetrating the energy-absorbing water surrounding the virus particles. This revolutionary new method should be effective in destroying a wide range of viruses and bacteria.
When tested on bacteriophage viruses, the quantity of infectious virions decreased by as mush as 1000-fold after laser treatment. They are now testing the system on HIV and Hepatitis C virions.
The laser induces a dipole moment in the virus’s capsid, which creates a force within the virus, so that the virion becomes unstable and breaks apart.
References:
Photonics, WIRED, John Hopkins, Laser Focus World Article
Forced Resonance Ultra-Short Pulse Laser Kills Viruses Dead
Original paper, Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Nov 2007
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