Microbots: Swiss Precision
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the concept of nanotechnology, its study and application to medicine and how the field might change the way scientists handle their approach to disease and other afflictions of the human body, perhaps allowing repair of the body without any kind of invasive surgery. I reminisced about Star Trek and the episode where Westley Crusher had harvested Nanites, sub-microscopic robots, for a science experiment on which he had been working and how they had escaped and wreaked havoc aboard the Enterprise. Well, this week I came across an article on the BioPharm International website about a Swiss team of scientists who are developing microbots, bigger than the Nanites described in Star Trek but on a scale that’s impressive nontheless. Click here to see the article and a picture of one of the bots on a finger.
This ambitious project was born at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ) by Bradley Nelson, PhD, and his colleagues. Their work, part of the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETHZ, involves the development of biomedical robots that are tiny enough that they can be delivered through the barrel of a syringe into the body, and guided through bodily fluids using magnets to reach their target and do their work. The idea of using magnets as part of a non-invasive delivery system is not new; there are current applications for them to deliver drugs to specifically targeted areas of the body. However, Nelson’s approach is different in that the package delivered to the target area would actively repair lesions within the body.
One of the more difficult areas of the body to repair on a small scale and therefore a strong candidate for the application of such a device is the eye. As the article describes it:
The posterior chamber of the eye is filled with the vitreous humor, a transparent, viscoelastic substance that occupies a large portion of the eyeball. During conventional ocular surgery much of the vitreous humor is removed to provide a work space to repair detached retinas or remove tumors and overgrown blood vessels that threaten the eye. However, Nelson proposes a much less invasive technique in which a syringe would perforate the eyeball and introduce the microrobots into the eye without disrupting the vitreous humor.
Once inside the patient, the microbots could carry out their surgical tasks under observation by the doctor through an external microscope. Their movement would be controlled using a magnetic system and they would carry a payload of proven “micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology” that would allow the doctor to complete the surgery.
There are technical and legal challenges that face the team before they’ll be able to see their work put to task. Currently, tracking the robots in three dimensions from within the eye is difficult at best, and similar tracking in any other part of the body would be even more difficult without the transparent layers the eye offers. A cost-effective and efficient way of equipping the robots also looms as a hurdle to be beaten. Finally, the process of getting regulatory approval for these devices through the US and European agencies would take at least several months, if not years.
As the article mentions, each task is solvable, and “the excitement inherent in the challenges of repairing the body through such elegant strategies will motivate researchers for years to come.” We have, in fact, seen some of these obstacles lessened in the very articles for this blog; perhaps some future iteration of 3D Ultrasound can solve the problems of maneuvering the small units through the body, and we know that the FDA is already working at reducing the time from submission to approval of drugs and, presumably, medical devices such as this.
I imagine a time in the next several years where a major heart surgery can be performed in a day with an injection of specialized microbots to repair the damage. Since there would be no external incision, it’s possible there would be no recovery period. Perhaps corrective vision surgery would involve a needle and an ibuprofen tablet to dull any pain. Exploratory surgery may even become a series of microbots in the bloodstream taking pictures of the afflicted area of the body.
What kind of practical applications do you see for this technology? Would you agree to allow microscopic robots flow throughout your body to target afflicted areas? What kind of problems do you see that might prevent its use as a surgical tool? Please tell me what you think!
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[...] may remember my article about Swiss experimentation with Microbots and their potential for use in new surgical procedures in the future. Being a technology [...]