Article "Foldable, organic and easily broken down: Why DNA is the material of choice for nanorobots"
May 10, 2021
May 10, 2021
Researchers have designed magnetically propelled microrobots capable of targeted drug delivery. As a proof-of-concept demonstration, a shape-morphing microfish (SMMF) is designed to encapsulate a drug (doxorubicin (DOX)) by closing its mouth in phosphate-buffered saline and release the drug by opening its mouth in a slightly acidic solution. According to the researchers, “With the continuous optimization of size, motion control, and imaging technology, these magnetic SMMRs will provide ideal platforms for complex microcargo operations and on-demand drug release.”
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Environmentally Adaptive Shape-Morphing Microrobots for Localized Cancer Cell Treatment
Chen Xin, Dongdong Jin, Yanlei Hu, Liang Yang, Rui Li, Li Wang, Zhongguo Ren, Dawei Wang, Shengyun Ji, Kai Hu, Deng Pan, Hao Wu, Wulin Zhu, Zuojun Shen, Yucai Wang, Jiawen Li, Li Zhang, Dong Wu, and Jiaru Chu
ACS Nano, DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.1c06651
Have you ever wondered if that over-the-counter pill you took an hour ago is helping to relieve your headache?
With NSF's support, a team of Stanford University mechanical engineers has found a way to target drug delivery…to better attack that headache.
Meet the millirobots. These finger-sized, wireless, origami inspired, amphibious robots could become medicines future lifesaver. They can roll, spin, and swim into narrow spaces with a mission to deliver and dispense a high-concentration drug exactly where the body needs it. Especially helpful when treating more complicated medical conditions like cardiovascular disease or cancer.
Millirobots go beyond the basic origami foldability to maneuver by utilizing accordion fold action to squeeze the medicine out.
Besides dispensing medicine more effectively, they could also carry instruments or cameras into the body, changing how doctors examine patients. The team is working on using ultrasound imaging to track where the robots go, eliminating the need to cut open organs.
While more testing is needed, the team continues combining novel smart materials and structures into unique designs to form new biomedical devices that could one day maximize health outcomes while minimizing the need for invasive procedures.
When you hear the term “robot,” you might think of complicated machinery working in factories or roving on other planets. But “millirobots” might change that. They’re robots about as wide as a finger that someday could deliver drugs or perform minimally invasive surgery. Researchers reporting in ACS Applied Polymer Materials have developed a soft, biodegradable, magnetic millirobot inspired by the walking and grabbing capabilities of insects.
“Soft Tunable Gelatin Robot with Insect-like Claw for Grasping, Transportation, and Delivery” - Wanfeng Shang, Ph.D., and Yajing Shen, Ph.D. (corresponding authors)
A new type of robot can change between solid and liquid forms on demand, to achieve a range of different goals
Micro Robots are a revolutionary new technology that could change how we interact with the world around us. For the first time, a collaborative research team of electrical and computer engineers , with support from NSF, has installed electronic brains on solar-powered microbots the size of a human hair. One of the biggest challenges is their small size-requiring external control, such as a computer or smartphone, limiting their range and making the bots difficult to manipulate remotely until now.
Birds, bats and many insects can tuck their wings against their bodies when at rest and deploy them to power flight. Whereas birds and bats use well-developed pectoral and wing muscles, how insects control their wing deployment and retraction remains unclear because this varies among insect species. Beetles (Coleoptera) display one of the most complex mechanisms. In rhinoceros beetles, Allomyrina dichotoma, wing deployment is initiated by complete release of the elytra and partial release of the hindwings at their bases. Subsequently, the beetle starts flapping, elevates the hindwing bases and unfolds the hindwing tips in an origami-like fashion. Although the origami-like fold has been extensively explored, limited attention has been given to the hindwing base movements, which are believed to be driven by the thoracic muscles. Here we demonstrate that rhinoceros beetles can effortlessly deploy their hindwings without necessitating muscular activity. We show that opening the elytra triggers a spring-like partial release of the hindwings from the body, allowing the clearance needed for the subsequent flapping motion that brings the hindwings into the flight position. After flight, the beetle can use the elytra to push the hindwings back into the resting position, further strengthening the hypothesis of passive deployment. We validated the hypothesis using a flapping microrobot that passively deployed its wings for stable, controlled flight and retracted them neatly upon landing, demonstrating a simple, yet effective, approach to the design of insect-like flying micromachines.Free to read link: https://rdcu.be/dPAyoCite this articlehan, HV., Park, H.C. & Floreano, D. Passive wing deployment and retraction in beetles and flapping microrobots. Nature (2024). nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07755-9
Researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University have created the first legged robot of its size to run, turn, push loads and climb miniature stairs.