(Nanowerk News) Tiny remotely operated robots could be designed to diagnose and treat illness in hard-to-reach areas of the human body, research suggests.
In tests, a swarm of robots measuring a few millionths of a metre long – about the size of a blood cell – were guided magnetically to sites in the stomach of rats.
The robots were manufactured by coating tiny algae with magnetic particles.
They could be tracked in tissue close to the skin’s surface by imaging the algae’s natural luminescence, and in hard-to-reach deeper tissue by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Scientists suggest their findings could lead to a way to deliver drugs to parts of the body that are otherwise difficult to treat.
The robots could also sense chemical changes linked to the onset of illness within parts of the body, which makes them potentially useful as probes for remote diagnosis.
