Researchers develop tiny robots to help treat cancer

 Researchers have developed tiny robots that could soon be delivering life-saving cancer treatments to hardto-reach parts of the body, a new study has revealed. The swarm of tiny ‘biohybrid’ machines measure a few millionths of a metre long, about the size of a red blood cell. The robots were manufactured by an international team of […]

 Researchers have developed tiny robots that could soon be delivering life-saving cancer treatments to hardto-reach parts of the body, a new study has revealed. The swarm of tiny ‘biohybrid’ machines measure a few millionths of a metre long, about the size of a red blood cell. The robots were manufactured by an international team of researchers led by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 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). Dr Qi Zhou, one of the authors of the study, said the tiny remotelyoperated robots could be used in a range of ways, including diagnosing illnesses and delivering therapies to parts of the body that are otherwise difficult to treat. During initial tests, the robots were guided magnetically to sites in the stomach of rats, where they killed cancerous tumours while leaving healthy cells unharmed