A wireless origami-inspired robot could travel through the digestive system, releasing accurate drug doses at the site they will be most effective.
at Stanford University in California and his colleagues have built a 7.8-millimetre robot from polypropylene film that is just 0.05 millimetres thick. At each end is a thin magnetic plate that enables external magnetic fields to control the robot鈥檚 movement as it travels inside a body.
Depending on the orientation of the fields, the robot can be made to spin, flip or roll through liquids, on solids and past any obstacles.
Advertisement
Like a concertina, the robot has a foldable shell that can be compressed. When exposed to the correct magnetic fields, the plates at each end twist in opposite directions, collapsing the robot from a hexagonal prism to a flat hexagon. This compression releases medicine from within the robot.
In a laboratory experiment, the robot rolled and flipped along a set path in a stomach removed from a dead pig. Once at its destination, the robot was compressed to release a dose of medicine, controlled by external magnetic fields.
According to the Stanford team, the robot could even be used for biopsies.
at the University of Sheffield, UK, says such technology is ready for real world applications in humans, pending regulatory approval.
鈥淚t鈥檚 just a matter of peoples鈥� decision whether, you know, they start using this technology for drug delivery or biopsies,鈥� says Miyashita. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think technically there is a hurdle.鈥�
Space constraints mean robots smaller than 1 centimetre tend not to have electrical parts within their structure, says Miyashita. Magnetic steering will allow the Stanford robot鈥檚 power, computation and control systems to be kept outside the body it is travelling through. This makes the robot inexpensive, small and disposable, with it passing through the digestive system naturally.
鈥淲hen digesting a device and letting it biodegrade inside the body, of course, electronics cannot be on board,鈥� says Miyashita.
Reference:
