Mini Magnetic Medics

A troupe of tiny magnetic robots, engineered by researchers at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering and Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital, has been developed to navigate the delicate environment of the human brain and potentially treat life-threatening brain bleeds by accessing areas that traditional surgeries cannot reach. Guided by medical imaging and external magnetic fields, the robots are precision engineered to gather at the aneurysm where they heat to their melting point, stimulating the naturally produced blood-clotting protein fibrin, thus blocking the aneurysm to prevent or stem bleeding into the brain and ensuring minimal harm to healthy tissue.

After having successfully tested the robots in in silico and in vivo model aneurysms in the lab, the team of scientists and engineers foresee further potential for the treatment of stroke and for transporting and releasing drug molecules to precise locations elsewhere in the body without risk of leaking into the bloodstream.

Published in Small, study co-lead Qi Zhou, University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering, said: “Nanorobots are set to open new frontiers in medicine – potentially allowing us to carry out surgical repairs with fewer risks than conventional treatments and target drugs with pinpoint accuracy in hard-to-reach parts of the body. Our study is an important step towards bringing these technologies closer to treating critical medical conditions in a clinical setting.”

The human body has a tendency, or instinct, to detect, reject, and expel foreign bodies and implanted materials, but the researchers suggest that the size of these nanorobots could decrease this risk, as well as the inherent risks associated with conventional brain surgery techniques. 

Pioneering a new era of microscale medical interventions, other recent developments in nanoscale robotics include the incredible story of the Bladder Runners, with the mission of eradicating cancer from the bladder.