Researchers Engineer Tiny Magnetic Robots to Treat Bleeding in the Brain

A team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering have created nanoscale robots that could be used to manage bleeds in the brain caused by aneurysms.
 
These magnetic nano-robots are about a twentieth the size of a human red blood cell and consist of blood-clotting drugs encased in a protective coating, designed to melt at precise temperatures.   
 
In lab tests, several hundred billion such bots were injected into an artery and then remotely guided as a swarm, using magnets and medical imaging, to the site of an aneurysm.  
 
Magnetic sources outside the body then cause the robots to cluster together inside the aneurysm and be heated to their melting point, releasing a naturally occurring blood-clotting protein, which blocks the aneurysm to prevent or stem bleeding into the brain. 
 
Further studying points to a future where tiny robots could be remotely controlled to carry out complex tasks throughout the body, such as targeted drug delivery and organ repair in a minimally invasive way.
 
An international team, co-led by clinicians from Shanghai Sixth People’s Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in China, successfully tested their devices in model aneurysms in the lab and a small number of rabbits.
 
Dr Qi Zhou of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Engineering, who co-led the study, said: “Nanorobots are set to open new frontiers in medicine – potentially allowing us to carry out surgical repairs with fewer risks than conventional treatments and target drugs with pinpoint accuracy in hard-to-reach parts of the body. Our study is an important step towards bringing these technologies closer to treating critical medical conditions in a clinical setting.”  
 
From the study, researchers found that the nanorobots show potential for transporting and releasing drug molecules to precise locations in the body without risk of leaking into the bloodstream – a key test of the technology’s safety and efficacy.  
 
According to researchers, this new technique could decrease the risk that the body will reject implanted materials, and curb reliance on anti-blood-clotting drugs, which can cause bleeding and stomach problems.
 
This method also avoids the need for doctors to manually shape a microcatheter to navigate a complex network of small blood vessels in the brain to reach the aneurysm.
 
The study led by a team from the UK and China, has been published in a small journal.