Scientists have created smart, tiny robots that have the ability to deliver drugs by swimming through blood vessels.
Bacteria were the inspiration researchers, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) and ETH Zurich in Switzerland, took to create the micro-robots that are highly flexible and biocompatible.
So, what can it do? The robots can swim through fluids and change their shape when required. It also has the ability to pass through very narrow blood vessels and complex systems, while still maintaining their speed.
Researchers reveal these devices can also be controlled via electromagnetic field, as they are made of hydrogel nanocomposites, which contains magnetic nanoparticles.
The invention is the first step to developing ingestible machines that can directly deliver drugs to the disease infected tissue.
The team faced a host of challenges while developing the miniaturised robots. So they decided to use an origami-based folding method to solve key issues. "Our robots have a special composition and structure that allows them to adapt to the characteristics of the fluid they are moving through,"Selman Sakar from EPFL, told a news portal. Adding, "For instance, if they encounter a change in viscosity or osmotic concentration, they modify their shape to maintain their speed and manoeuvrability without losing control of the direction of motion."
However, whatever they encounter they are designed to automatically change shape when necessary. "Nature has evolved a multitude of microorganisms that change shape as their environmental conditions change. This basic principle inspired our micro-robot design," Bradley Nelson at ETH Zurich, told a news portal.
Currently,the team is working on improving the performance of the robots swimming through complex fluids.
