Microscopic robots

Robin Cook, in his book ‘Brain’, mirrors the grimmest realities of neurological diseases like brain cancers and brain tumors, simultaneously, talking about the lack of a proper treatment method and structure that cause the countless deaths. The healthcare industry experiments to deliver accurate and impeccable services, interminably. With technological advancements, the healthcare infrastructure has been transformed leaps and bounds. However, cancer occurrence and cure remains to be a critical juncture for medical practitioners as doctors deem chemotherapy as an insufficient cure for brain cancers which is one of the dire neurological diseases.

Robotics is an emerging field of study that is spearheading diverse industries such as education in healthcare. The healthcare industry, which now thrives on technological incorporations, are heavily employing Microscopic robots to handle sensitive and critical tasks such as drug delivery to the brain.

One of the most innovative inventions in the field of robotics is the microscopic swimming robots that perform medical tasks such as cancer therapies and surgeries.

A Closer Look at Microscopic Robots

In a study published in science robotics, microscopic magnetic robots were made based on neutrophils. Neutrophils are white blood cells found in mice. The magnetic neutrobots penetrated the blood-brain barrier to deliver drugs to the brain that cure cancer.

Liangfang Zhang, a nanoengineer and a bioengineer at the University of San Diego has appreciated this idea as a novel one and the study is a proof-of-concept that can be welcomed in treating brain cancers in humans.

One of the major challenges in any neurological disease is to get the drugs past the blood-brain barrier (BBB). The BBB is known as the most highly selective boundary that disallows the filtration of the most important substances in the brain. However, white blood cells are capable of penetrating the wall. Neurosurgeons and doctors have often experimented with similar brain cancer drugs to make them go beyond the barrier but such drugs have only resulted in the damage of the brain tissues.

The prior iterations of the drug-ferrying immune cells have failed to treat brain tumors in mice. Besides, timeliness is one of the major factors in the cure of brain tumors. Neutrobots can easily penetrate through BBB in a stipulated time.

Neutrobots are also experimented with n treating glioma. Glioma is a certain type of brain cancer found in mice. A neutrophil-based neutrobot is designed to treat glioma which can be controlled by magnetic fields.

The injection of neutrophil-based neutrobots in mice resulted in speedy recovery from brain cancer in mice. Speculatively, neutrobots can also be used on human brains to treat certain neurological diseases. Doctors assert that treating brain cancers using neutrobots will also give rise to painless brain surgeries, lessening the number of deaths.