Ma thèse
Food industry must continuously adapt to the requirements of an increasing population by proposing an adequate amount of food products and at the same time insure the nutritional and the safety of these products. The necessity to limit the negative effects of the technologies currently used to ensure the safety of food products lead to the development of novel food decontamination technologies. Cold atmospheric pressure plasmas, due to their biocidal potential could be used as an alternative technology to the chemical products for the decontamination in food industry. Cold atmospheric pressure plasmas are ionized gases that produce high amounts of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) such as atomic oxygen, ozone, hydroxide and nitrite. These species act in synergy with charged particles, electric field and radiations to inactivate microorganisms. Numerous studies demonstrated the deleterious effect of plasma exposure on bacteria cell wall and cell membrane, on proteins and DNA. More recently, some research groups showed that plasma exposure can significantly decrease antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and their conjugative transfer frequency.
My thesis project aims to assess the atmospheric pressure plasma potential in the biological decontamination of food products with a special interest on the effect of plasma on antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) and the transfer of ARGs.