A team of researchers has developed micro-robots that could soon be used to diagnose and deliver drugs in hard-to-reach areas of the human body. The robots were manufactured by coating tiny algae with magnetic particles and can smoothly swim in biological fluids, such as diluted blood and gastric fluid. "A small-scale robot that can be remotely guided, is easily tracked and harmlessly biodegrades, potentially overcomes many of the challenges faced by minimally invasive therapies," said the researcher from the University of Edinburgh.
"We hope our discoveries will pave the way for the development of useful diagnostics or treatments," he said. The robots, which measured about the size of a blood cell, were guided magnetically to sites in the stomach of rats.They could be tracked in tissue close to the skin's surface by imaging the algae's natural luminescence, and in hard-to-reach deeper…
