Cell-Sized Microrobots Could Someday Change Future Medical Treatments

Researchers have recently devised an imaging technique that recognizes for the first time, cell-sized microrobots individually, at high resolution in a living organism.

As indicated in a Phys.org report, "microrobots have the potential to revolutionize medicine." In relation to this, two questions now arise.

These pertain to, first, the manner blood clot can be removed from the brain minus any major surgical intervention; and second, the manner a drug can be administered exactly into a diseased organ that is quite a struggle to reach.

These are just two of the examples of the innumerable innovations the researchers in the area of medical microrobotics envisioned.

Microrobots

Small robots, in particular, promise to change fundamentally, future medical therapeutics. Someday, they could move through the patient's thasculature to eliminate malignancies, fight infections, or provide precise diagnostic information completely noninvasively.

In principle, the researchers at the Max Planck ETH Centre for Learning Systems, therefore, contend, that the circulatory system might serve as an "ideal delivery route" for the microrobots, since it's reaching all organs, as well as the tissues in the body.

For these microrobots to be able to carry out the intended medical interventions dependably and safely and dependably, they need to be more massive compared to a biological cell.

Meanwhile, the tiniest blood vessels in humans, the capillaries, are even leaner. Their average diameter is just eight micrometers. More so, the microrobots need to be correspondingly tiny if they need to pass through the tiniest blood vessels unhindered.

Nonetheless, such a tinier size makes them visible as well, to the naked eye, and science as well has not yet discovered a technical solution to identify and track the micron-sized robots individually as they spread in the body.

Essential for Monitoring Treatment Interventions

According to Paul Wrede, a doctoral fellow at Max Planck ETH Center for Learning System, before this future scenario turns into reality, and microrobots are actually used in humans, the accurate visualization, as well as tracking of these small machines is absolutely essential.

Professor of Biomedical Imaging at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich Daniel Razansky explained, minus imaging, "microrobotics is essentially blind."

This professor, also a member of the CLS added real-time, high-resolution imaging is therefore important for the detection and control of cell-sized microrobots in a living organism.

Moreover, further, imaging is a prerequisite as well, for monitoring treatment interventions carried out by the robots and confirming that they have performed their tasks as intended.

Essentiality of Unique Imaging Method

In their study published in Science Advances, the study authors employed microrobots with sizes that range from five to 20 micrometers.

The smallest robots are roughly the size of red blood cells, which are about seven to eight micrometers in diameter.

This particular size is making it possible for the intravenously inoculated microrobots to travel even through the leanest microcapillaries in the mouse brains.

Such a unique imaging method is making it plausible to detect small robots in deep and hard-to-reach areas of the brain, which would not have been possible with optical microscopy for any other imaging approach.

Related information about microrobots used for medical intervention is shown on the American Chemical Society's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on Robotics in Science Times.