UK (CU)_ Researchers across the world have taken note on the potential of microrobots with a heightened interest funding coming from both government and private entities. Microrobots are extremely tiny robotic devices capable of carrying out a series of functions within a body, such as delivering medical therapies to cells in the most difficult to reach places as well as its use in diagnostics and more.
Researcher have now further enhanced the potential of microrobots, with magnetic properties where the injection of microrobot swarms into the human body is capable of clearing blocked medical devices such as shunts, which is a medical tube surgically placed in the body, that can be used to treat conditions such as hydrocephalus. The new findings could help reduce the need for surgery as they can be controlled by a magnetic force, when shunts get clogged.
Lead researcher of Essex’s School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, Dr Ali Hoshiar further emphasized how this could be a wireless, non-invasive option for shunts further explained that the magnetic field produced by a strong magnet on the surface of the body can mobilize the swarm of microrobots to clear away particles which also observed a stronger magnetic force that equated to more powerful clearing.
The microrobots are finer than the width of a human hair, which also opens up the possibility for many other applications within the body. The use of medical stents to clear blocked arteries where the procedure conducted with the aid of a visible screen, is clear example of how medical science and technology can combine to solve medical conditions where it is possible that the newly developed swarm of microrobots can play a similar role in other medical conditions.
The confirmed new evidence of microswarms unlocking a shunt where they hope to further advance the findings with clinical studies and expand its applications.
