Powerful drugs that kill cancer unfortunately also kill some healthy cells and cause unpleasant side effects. Millions of small robots could solve this dilemma by delivering medication directly where it is needed.
Image: Polytechnique Montréal
Chemotherapy kills cancer, but it also attacks healthy cells. This unfortunate phenomenon makes us sick and can cause permanent damage to our body. Of course, good (saving lives) still outweighs the bad guys, so we continue to use powerful drugs to kill cancer. But with the latest technology, we can do better.
Delivering medication directly where it is needed not only minimizes side effects but also makes medications more effective. That's why researchers are designing tiny robots to accurately carry drugs to cancer cells, leaving healthy cells nearby alone.
Imagine armies of millions of miniature robots that travel through streams of blood to sneak into cancerous cells. It sounds like a fantasy because it is. Despite the admirable efforts of scientists, many technological challenges still have to be overcome.
To deliver drugs to cancer cells, nanobots must: be small enough to penetrate a tumor through blood vessels, be able to propel and navigate by avoiding obstacles, have a mechanism to detect oxygen levels (which indicate active cancer cells ), Be bio-compatible, capable of carrying drugs, and have them in the power supply on board. Oh, and besides all that, they have to be cheap to produce, since they are so small that it takes hundreds of millions of robots to deliver the right dose of drugs. It's a long list of wishes that even the best scientists in the world will struggle to complete.
Meanwhile, a team of Montreal researchers developed an alternative: natural nanobots are almost as good as intelligent artificial nanobots. They used nanotechnology to charge bacteria with drugs to fight cancer and guide them to cancer cells. Sylvain Martel, one of the authors of the natural nanobot study published in Nature Nanotechnology in August, explained to ZDNet how bacteria navigate:
Each bacterium has a chain of nano-particles that acts like a microscopic magnetic compass and we explode it to indicate to the bacteria the direction of the tumor. Once in the tumor, deactivate the magnetic field and then the bacteria will rely on their oxygen sensors on board to swim towards the regions of the active cancer cells.
Researchers have shown that their cancer-fighting bacteria work in mice, and are now seeking funds to prove that natural nanobots would be safe for people. Human trials are expected to begin in the next few years. Although the bacteria is quite effective, it can not be personalized and controlled, as well as a man-made robot.
Ultimately, Martel suggests a hybrid approach that combines both artificial and natural nanobots. He hopes that nanotechnology and genetics are progressing rapidly, and each field will offer unique solutions. Their predictions are summarized in another scientific paper published in the March issue of Biomicrofluidics:
Although the two approaches will be complementary to many types of interventions, efforts will continue to replace microorganism-based agents with artificial implementations. This competition will continue for many years as the evolution of technological trends will offer new possibilities for artificial agents, while genetics will expand the range of possibilities of agents based on microorganisms.
Source/Credits:
Kelly McSweeney
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