Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck
In a breakthrough that could bring us one step closer to nanorobotics drug delivery, experts at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and ETH Zurich have developed machines that can easily travel through body fluids.
These nanoswimmers, which are described in a paper published in a recent edition of the journal Nano Letters, are capable of ferrying drugs through the bloodstream and delivering them to specific parts of the body affected by a disease, the authors explained in a statement.
Such robots, they added, could be programmed to target and eliminate cancer cells, lowering the complications associated with typical cancer treatments while also reducing the need for invasive surgeries and resulting in a faster recovery for the patient. However, experts have struggled with designing robots that can easily move through relatively thick, molasses-like body fluids.
Nanobots require no motor, can carry larger drugs
In their study, authors Bradley J. Nelson, Salvador Pané, Yizhar Or, and their colleagues set out to tackle this problem. They put together three links in a chain approximately the same length of the width of a silk fiber – one of which was a polymer, while the others were magnetic, metallic nanowires. They then applied an oscillating magnetic field.
Once this magnetic field was applied, their nanoswimmer moved in an S-like, undulating motion and travelled at speeds of nearly one body length per second. Furthermore, the researchers noted that this magnetic field also can direct the swimmers to reach targets for drug delivery.
“This work demonstrates for the first time planar undulations of composite multilink nanowire-based chains (diameter 200 nm) induced by a planar-oscillating magnetic field,” the authors said in their study, adding that the “multilink design exhibits a high swimming efficiency” and that the “manufacturing process enables tuning the geometrical and material properties to specific applications.”
According to Engadget, their innovation eliminates the need for a motor in the nanobots, which frees up more space for carrying medication. Furthermore, this also makes it fairly easy to build and tweak the machines for use in several different applications, the website added. However, clinical trials are said to still be a long way off.
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