It seems like an idea straight out of science fiction: sending a robot into someone in order to cure them of whatever disease they are facing. However, more and more research is being done in this field, and it is developing into a viable treatment. This concept has spawned a growing new area of research that connects the fields of medicine, engineering, chemistry, and physics, very well.
The idea that machines so small could impact the biomedical field is surprisingly nothing new. In the 1950s, famous physicist Richard Feynman commented in a university lecture that “[The fact that] enormous amounts of information can be carried in an exceedingly small space—is, of course, well known to the biologists, and resolves the mystery which existed before we understood all this clearly, of how it could be that, in the tiniest cell, all of the information for the organization of a complex creature such as ourselves can be stored.”
Although it is not a treatment used on people yet, that’s not to say that huge developments have not been made in the field. In 2009, scientists at Harvard developed a silicon nano-propeller, only 70 nanometers in diameter, that could be rotated by magnetic fields that were able to demonstrate the ability to move through real biological tissue. In 2016, another research group in Canada developed nano-machines that were proven to be capable of actually breaking into a tumor and delivering a drug designed to decrease the tumor’s size.
One of the largest challenges that come with designing a nanorobot that would go in the body is how to power it. Obviously, putting something electrical or chemically powered in the body has its own challenges, so researchers have found other ways of making the robots move. One popular method so far has been using magnetism. As in the Harvard case, the robots worked by providing an electric field outside the body that would rotate the tiny propellers within, making them turn and move through tissue. Another group, researching tumors, provided motion by manipulating red blood cells, giving them a higher density and making them more receptive to ultrasonic energy. This allowed for certain red blood cells to be moved, while others remained, and thus the manipulated cells were again steered by an outside magnetic field. Furthermore, scientists in Barcelona who were researching bladder cancer treatments found a way to power their robots with chemical reactions, developing 300 to 400 nanometer robots that were fueled by the chemical reaction in the bladder that forms carbon dioxide and ammonia.
The applications of this research in the medical field would have a tremendous impact. Precision treatment for cancers could be a huge alternative to invasive surgeries or dangerous chemotherapy. Researchers in the Barcelona study pointed out that “The clinicians tell us that … [the standard treatment] is one of the few things that has not changed over the past 60 years.” As such, nanotechnology could offer a solution that both saves lives and is better for patients.
Needless to say, the kind of technology that could help cure major diseases with robotics is a long way off, and so far there have been no instances of a successful “treatment by nanorobot.” However, as research in the field continues, it is inevitable that news of the latest progress in nanobiology will seem less like science fiction, and more like a possible reality.
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