Edible Robot Caterpillar Designed to Deliver Drugs Inside Human Body
High-tech drug delivery systems continue to be researched. I’ve extensively covered the move toward nanorobotics that can do everything from deliver drugs to laying down labels for genetic marking that could one day connect the human brain to computers or rewire it completely.
The latest offering is a bit more direct than that – it involves eating a robotic caterpillar and having it swim through your insides to distribute medication, as you can see in the video below.
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The design, according to an article in The Daily Mail, which cites the journal Nature Communications, will help deliver drugs to hard-to-reach areas that might otherwise require a surgical procedure. However, it is also magnetized, so researchers say it can be controlled remotely from outside of the body.
The robot is fabricated with a silicon material called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) embedded with magnetic particles which enables it to be remotely controlled by applying electromagnetic force.
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Controlled by a magnetic manipulator used in experiments, the robot can move in both a flap propulsion pattern and an inverted pendulum pattern, meaning that it can use its front feet to flap forward as well as swinging the body by standing on the left and right feet alternately to advance respectively.
The researchers said this is merely a prototype version and they aim eventually to make a robot delivery system that can biodegrade without a trace after it completes its task.
Before conducting further tests in animals and eventually in humans, the research teams are further developing and refining their research in three aspects, namely finding a biodegradable material, studying new shapes, and adding extra features.
Science or mad science? The line continues to blur by the day.
Nicholas West writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon for as little as $1 per month. Support us at Patreon. Follow us on Minds, Steemit, SoMee, BitChute, Facebook and Twitter. Ready for solutions? Subscribe to our premium newsletter Counter Markets.
