Nanoengineers Devise Microrobots That Can Swim Around in the Lungs, Potential Treatment for Pneumonia

The University of California Sand Diego nanoengineers have recently developed microscopic robots called "microrobots" which have the ability to swim around in the lungs, deliver medication, and be employed to clear up life-threatening conditions like bacterial pneumonia for one.

As indicated in a Phys.org report, the microrobot safely took out pneumonia-causing bacteria in the lungs and led to 100-percent survival. On the contrary, untreated mice all died within three days from infection.

These microrobots are made of algae cells whose surfaces are speckled with nanoparticles filled wih antibiotics.

Such algae provide a particular movement, enabling the microrobots to swim around and deliver antibiotics directly to more microbes in the lungs.

Antibiotics-filled Nanoparticles

Essentially, the nanoparticles containing the antibiotics are made of small biodegradable polymer spheres that are coated with the cell membranes of neutrophils, which are white blood cell types.

What's unique about these cell membranes is that they are absorbing and neutralizing inflammatory molecules produced by bacteria and the immune system of the body.

This then provides the microrobots the ability to lessen hazardous inflammation, which in turn, is making them more efficient when it comes to fighting a lung infection.

The work is a joint initiative between the laboratories of nanoengineering professors, Joseph Wang and Liangfang Zhang, both at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

Together, the two nanoengineers have pioneered the development of tiny robots that deliver drugs, that can be used safely in live animals for the treatment of bacterial infections, in the blood and stomach. Essentially, treating bacterial lung infections is the latest in the two's line of work.

Microrobots Used to Treat Mice

Explaining their work, Zhang said, their goal is to do targeted drug delivery into more challenging body parts, like the lungs.

More so, he said, they want to do it in a manner that's safe, easy, biocompatible, and long-lasting. That's what has been demonstrated in the work that's published in the Nature Materials journal.

The research team used microrobots to treat mice with an acute and possibly fatal pneumonia form caused by the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

The pneumonia form impacts patients receiving mechanical ventilation in the ICU or intensive care unit.

The team, according to a similar Bioengineer.org report, administered the microrobots to the lungs of the mice through a tube that was inserted in the windpipe.

Such infections completely cleared up after a week. All mice treated using microrobots survived longer than 30 days, while mice that were not treated died within three days.

For Drug Delivery

Treatment using microrobots was more effective too, compared to an IV injection of antibiotics into the bloodstream.

The latter necessitated a dose of antibiotics that was "3,000 times higher than that used in the microrobots" for the achievement of the same effect.

To compare, a dose of microrobots provided 500 nanograms of antibiotics for each mouse, while an IV injection offered 1.6444 milligrams of antibiotics for each mouse.

This approach of the team is very effective as it's putting the medication right where it needs to go rather than diffusing it through the rest of the body.

Such results show how targeted delivery of drugs combined with active movement from the microalgae improves treatment efficacy, Wang explained.

Related information related to nanorobots for medicine is shown on KTNV Channel 13's YouTube video Below:

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