A team of engineers at the University of Colorado has designed a new class of tiny robots, capable of self-propellate quickly in a liquid. In the future, they will even be able to transport medicines to otherwise hard-to-reach parts of the human body.
After discovering the microrobot capable of transporting cells, technology takes a step forward in the service of medicine.
“Imagine if microrobots could perform certain tasks in the body, such as non-invasive operations,” said researcher Jin Lee, who led the study published in Small journal. “Rather than cutting into the patient, we can simply put these robots into the body with a pill or injection, and let them do the job.“
The researchers explained the vast potential of these small medical robots; in their study, the team released them into lab mice to deliver dexamethasone — a common anti-inflammatory drug — to their bladder. The results showed their usefulness in the treatment of diseases related to the bladder and potentially others, in humans.
“Small-scale robots have attracted a lot of attention in the scientific community, but what makes them interesting is that we can design them to perform specific tasks in the body,said C. Wyatt Shields, co-author of the study.
In experiments, the researchers managed to store large quantities of dexamethasone in microrobots; this has considerable advantages in the case of bladder irritation disease, as small machines can slowly release the drug into the organ, over two days. This constant flow of medicines it would prove to be of great help to the patient, who will be able to avoid undergoing the normal treatment (usually lasting several weeks).
But the researchers aim even higher. Indeed, they are convinced that these microrobots will be able to cure many other debilitating diseasesgreatly facilitating the process.
However, the tiny machines aren’t quite ready to travel in the human body and the team is now hard at work improving the technology further. In the meantime, we can always rely on MIT’s innovative patch for drug delivery.