2023-09-07 04:00:05
Bio-inspiration seems to be an inexhaustible vein for researchers in many fields. Referring to the pangolin, sadly popularized since the Covid-19 pandemic, to imagine a mini-robot capable of going into the smallest corners of the digestive tract in order to burn a tumor or cauterize a wound, you had to think about it. This is what a team from the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Stuttgart (Germany) dared to do.
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The challenge was to find a configuration allowing a mini-robot to be directed remotely through the digestive tract so that it could adhere to a wall while being in a liquid medium. It turns out that the pangolin, whose keratin scales are particularly rigid, nevertheless enjoys great flexibility in its movements or to curl up in a ball in case of danger.
In a article published in June in Nature Communications, Professor Metin Sitti’s team demonstrates the amazing capabilities of this little robot ex vivo, on an open pig’s stomach. These researchers in biomaterials and intelligent systems now plan to work with gastroenterologists from the Koç University Hospital, in Istanbul (Turkey), in order to be able to test it in vivo on animals, then on humans.
The object developed for this research has the shape of a slat of 2 centimeters by 1 centimeter, for 0.2 millimeters in thickness. What to be introduced into a gelatin capsule in order to be swallowed by an individual. The basic structure is a magnetic polymer on which rows of aluminum “scales” 50 to 100 micrometers thick are fixed with a 50% overlap. A weak magnetic field directed from the outside can cause this slat to twist on itself in order to be remotely rolled to the desired destination, as shown a video made by the researchers. It is the polymer substrate which is thus actuated remotely to ensure the movement.
Choice of materials to review
” That’s done ! », the members of this team must have said to themselves before tackling the second challenge they had set themselves: providing care. A high-frequency magnetic field, applied at a distance of 5 centimeters from the minirobot, therefore theoretically from outside the body, can raise the temperature of the metal scales to 70°C in thirty seconds. Enough to cauterize a gastrointestinal hemorrhage or to burn a tumor non-invasively, by offering a substantial heating surface of 2 square centimeters. another video helps to understand how it works.
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