Micro-Robots may Change Medicine Forever
This tiny micro-robot, the size of a speck of dust, may forever change how medicine is done in the near future.
A group of engineers at Purdue University have developed an incredibly small rectangular micro robot which can travel through the human body to deliver medicine. Or they can be used as a diagnostic tool to report back on your health.
The robot as tiny as a few human hairs, according to the recent announcement by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Seen in this image of a penny, the micro-robot is the tiny speck smaller than the ‘U’ in United States.
Why are these Micro-Robots important?
Current medicines often have very negative side-effects. Much of this is due to the fact that the medicines travel throughout various areas of the body in order to reach their target. In this way, the medication can adversely impact other organs and body parts.
By placing the medicine onboard a tiny robot like this one, it can be programmed to wait until it reaches a very specific part of the body before releasing the medicine.
How do they work?
This first micro robot has been tested in live animals. It has been able to travel throughout a colon by essentially doing back flips. In the end, developers aim to use these robots eventually transport therapeutic drugs through the colons and other organs have rough terrain.
The tiny device derives its power from a magnetic field outside of the patient. Doctors would use the same field to control the robot – directing it to the target location.
“When we apply a rotating external magnetic field to these robots, they rotate just like a car tire would over rough terrain,” said David Cappelleri, a Purdue mechanical engineer. “The magnetic field also safely penetrates different types of mediums, which is important for using these robots in the human body.”
This video explains more about how the micro-robots work.
The NSF helped to fund this research. The work has been cited as the “first demonstration of a microrobot tumbling through a biological system in vivo.”
According to the study, the microrobots are nontoxic and biocompatible. They are made of polymer and metal.
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