Planck researchers in Stuttgart has built a tiny submarine, shown in the drawing on the right. Small magnets, shown here …
via Alejandro Posada / MPI for Intelligent Systems
Micro- and nano-swimmers can be propelled through media similar to bodily fluids
Micro- or even nano-robots could someday perform medical tasks in the human body. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart have now taken a first step towards this goal. They have succeeded in constructing swimming bodies that simultaneously meet two requirements: they are small enough to be used in bodily fluids or even individual cells, and they are able to navigate through complex biological fluids.
In the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage, a submarine complete with crew is shrunk in size so that it can navigate through the human body, enabling the crew to perform surgery in the brain. This scenario remains in the realm of science fiction, and transporting a surgical team to a disease site will certainly remain fiction. Nevertheless, tiny submarines that could navigate through the body could be of great benefit: they could deliver drugs precisely to a target location, a point on the retina for instance. And they could make it possible to carry out gene therapy in a specific cell.
If things go according to Peer Fischer, leader of the Micro, Nano and Molecular Systems Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart, then doctors will in the foreseeable future call upon micro- or even nano-robots to carry out such tasks. The little helpers would accurately home-in on targets in the body, eliminating the need for more major surgery, or by making some procedures minimally invasive.
A microscopic scallop could not swim in water
However, there are two fundamental challenges to realize these goals. Obviously, such vehicles must be small enough to be injected into the eyeball, for example, with a syringe. Secondly, once introduced into the body, they must be able to move through bodily fluids and tissue. On both fronts, the research group led by Peer Fischer has now made significant progress.
The Latest on: Microbots
via Google News
The Latest on: Microbots
- Treating cancer with spermon May 18, 2022 at 8:00 am
In addition to swimming—and now propelling microbots—sperm possess several other qualities that suggested they might have a lot to offer even beyond the field of assisted reproduction. Previous ...
- Developing Artificial Bees to Replace the Real Thingon May 17, 2022 at 5:00 pm
Manchester University researchers believe microbots that mimic the behavior of bees could potentially take over for their real life counterparts as global bee populations dwindle. (Image source: ...
- These Nanobots Can Swim Around a Wound and Kill Bacteriaon May 12, 2022 at 5:00 am
Researchers have created autonomous particles covered with patches of protein “motors.” They hope these bots will tote lifesaving drugs through bodily fluids.
- Microbots Use Magnetism to Send Nanoparticles to Tumorson May 11, 2022 at 5:00 pm
Researchers are finding nanotechnology particularly useful in medicine, where they are creating tiny devices that can enter the human body and perform tasks that previously were invasive or less ...
- Pioneering electric eye being developed by scientists could be used to help blind people seeon April 19, 2022 at 10:26 am
Artificial vision could be closer to reality, after scientists develop a tiny electric eye designed for use by microbots, which could ultimately help blind people too. Georgia State University ...
- Growth Opportunities in Industrial Robots, Cryobioprinting, Photonic Quantum Computing and Digital Therapeutics - ResearchAndMarkets.comon April 18, 2022 at 4:03 am
This edition of the Inside R&D TOE features the development of artificial muscle for microbots using novel techniques that can be used in various applications in the healthcare and military ...
- Watch a tiny, magnetically powered robot construction crew go to workon April 16, 2022 at 5:00 pm
Some of these endeavors show promise in medicine, but there are plenty of potential uses for microbots, especially when you can persuade a swarm of them to work together. Research outfit SRI ...
- General Surgery Newson April 3, 2022 at 4:59 pm
Tiny Robot Bugs in Development for Medical Relief Microbots can traverse spaces where drones can't fly in, and scientists envision a future where these devices, crafted even smaller, could be ...
- These Microbots Will Treat Diseases From Inside Your Bodyon November 22, 2016 at 10:13 pm
Starfish-like microbots can even perform biopsies from inside the body. These bots have grippers that can retrieve tissue samples. Delivered in the thousands, the bots can take tissue from hard to ...
- Watch These 100 Gram Robots Pull a 4000 Pound Caron March 15, 2016 at 12:54 pm
In their latest study, a group of six microbots that only weigh 3.5 ounces in total have managed to pull a car weighing 3,900 pounds. The demonstration is part of the team’s research that ...
via Bing News