Scientists develop tiny, drug-filled robots that may treat strokes 

Researchers at the federal technology institute ETH Zurich have developed a microrobot to fight diseases inside the body.

This new technology could enable doctors to dissolve blockages that cause strokes, treat infections with antibiotics, and deliver anti-cancer medication directly to tumours with no side effects elsewhere in the body.

Scientists can control the device, which is less than two millimetres wide, as it swims through the bloodstream to deliver essential drugs.

The tiny robot has not yet been tested on humans. However, it worked in tests on pigs and a sheep, the researchers reported in the journal Science.

ETH Zurich said in a press release that medical research has been trying for some time to develop methods to deliver drugs exactly where they are needed.

Today, many diseases, such as strokes or tumours, require high doses of drugs to be administered and distributed throughout the body, and this increases the risk of side effects.

Lead author Dr Fabian Landers, a postdoctoral researcher at the Multi-Scale Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich, stated that because the vessels in the human brain are so small, there is a limit to how big the capsule can be.

“The technical challenge is to ensure that a capsule this small also has sufficient magnetic properties,” he said.

The robot, smaller than most bacteria, consists of a tiny spherical capsule, made of a dissolvable gel and iron oxide nanoparticles, which are added to make it magnetic. The scientists can track the robot using X-ray tech.

The tiny robot could travel with or against the current and travel at speeds up to 4 mm per second (or one inch every six seconds).

Once the microrobot reached its target, the scientists could use a high-frequency magnetic field to heat the microrobot, dissolving its shell and releasing the medicine inside.

This invention was tested using silicone models that replicated the blood vessels of humans and animals, as well as in several pigs and the brain of a sheep.

The scientists’ next goal is to begin human clinical trials so this technology can soon be used in hospital operating theatres.

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