JUNE 8TH, 2023 CONN HASTINGS MATERIALS, UROLOGY Engineers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have developed a medical microrobot that is powered by acoustic waves. The tiny devices, which are 20 micrometers wide and considerably smaller than the width of a human hair, can move incredibly fast for their size, achieving a speed of 3...
Inspired by the growth of bones in the skeleton, researchers at the universities of Linköping in Sweden and Okayama in Japan have developed a combination of materials that can morph into various shapes before hardening. The material is initially soft, but later hardens through a bone development process that uses the same materials found in the...
LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY IMAGE: THE BLACK MATERIAL IS AN ELECTROACTIVE POLYMER, THE VOLUME OF WHICH CHANGES WHEN THE RESEARCHERS APPLY A LOW VOLTAGE, WHICH MAKES THIS SIMPLE “MICROROBOT” BEND. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MATERIAL, YOU CAN SEE THE GEL TO WHICH THE RESEARCHERS HAVE ATTACHED BIOMOLECULES THAT ALLOW THE SOFT GEL MATERIAL TO HARDEN...
by DGIST In vitro magnetic actuation of the Cellbots in a microfluidic channel. a) Fabricated microfluidic channel with loading chamber, micro-pillars, and tortuous route. b) Rolling motion of the Cellbots under a rotating magnetic field (scale bar = 50 μm). c) Magnetic pulling motion of the Cellbots under a magnetic field gradient (scale bar = 50...
By Theresa Gaffney March 24, 2021 Reprints Scientists have created a microrobot that can pass the near-impenetrable blood-brain barrier to treat brain tumors in mice, they report in a new study in Science Robotics. Researchers at the Harbin Institute of Technology and Harbin Medical University in China were able to combine the natural abilities of neutrophils — bacteria fighting...
Precise delivery of therapeutic drugs into diseased tissue remains a challenge in a variety of cases. Tumors can be hard to seed with chemo agents, particularly when the blood flow is not favorable for delivery. Now, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Germany have developed microscopic drug delivery devices that can...
By Michael Irving In the not too distant future, tiny robots could be delivering drugs inside our bodies, but there are still a few hurdles to clear before we realize that scenario. Now researchers have developed corkscrew microrobots that drill into cancer and hold fast while they drop off the drug payload, preventing them being...
Using a substrain of E. coli MG 1655 and nanoscale red blood cell membranes, researchers created tiny biohybrid swimmers that could personalize drug delivery to treat tumors AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS WASHINGTON, April 7, 2020 — Tiny biohybrid robots on the micrometer scale can swim through the body and deliver drugs to tumors or provide...
by Ty Burke, University of Toronto Mississauga Credit: CC0 Public Domain The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but that doesn’t mean the most direct route will yield the best results. As a concept, that isn’t exactly brain surgery, but it does apply to it. During a craniotomy – a type of surgery that can...
