Drug delivery

Researchers have taken another step forward in medical micro-robotics, designing a tiny sound-propelled bot with a unique design that mimics natural swimmers like bacteria. It can quickly move around the body to deliver drugs where they're needed.

Tiny 3D-printed robotic animals could one day delivering drugs directly to cancers, to help reduce side effects. These microrobots are steered by magnets, and only release their drug payload when they encounter the acidic environment around a tumor.

Nature is a never-ending source of inspiration for robots, whether it’s bees, bacteria or fish. Now an unlikely new candidate has joined the list – starfish larvae, which use tiny hairs to create a vortex to propel themselves or suck in food.

Scientists at Purdue University have developed a back-flipping microbot that can tumble its way through the colon to release its payload when desired, all while being controlled externally by a magnetic field.

One day microscopic robots could be crawling through your body, clearing out disease or delivering drugs. And now we’re one step closer to that future, as scientists from Cornell University have created tiny robots powered by pulses of laser light.

Given how compounds like flavoring dissipate out of gum as it's being chewed, scientists are looking into the controlled oral delivery of drugs via medicated gum. A robot is being designed with that in mind, as a way of standardizing the chew test.

The human body is full of wildly different environments, so any robots exploring them need to be able to adapt on the fly. Now, researchers at EPFL and ETH Zurich have developed micro-robots that can automatically morph in response to their surroundings.

In the future, tiny robots of all kinds of shapes could be swimming and crawling through your body, delivering drugs or patching up wounds. The next robot to join those ranks is a caterpillar-inspired device, which gets around with ease on hundreds of tiny, pointy legs.

In the quest for tiny robots that can navigate through our bodies, Purdue University engineers have developed a new magnetic mini-robot named microTUM. The robot moves by tumbling end over end over bumps, trenches and hills, in wet or dry conditions.

Most medical micro-robots are limited to one method of movement and might not handle complex terrain. Now, a team from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems has developed a “millirobot” that can walk, crawl, jump, climb, roll, swim and carry loads like a microrobotic Mario.

Inspired by biological processes, researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are developing materials that “die” when they run out of energy, which could lead to time-release drug delivery systems and eventually electronics and packaging that self-destructs when required.

​Tiny, ingestible electronic devices are proving to be better for drug delivery or invasive procedures, but powering them can be a challenge. Now researchers at MIT have designed electronics powered by acids in the stomach, making for a cheaper and safer alternative to other batteries.