So a year ago, after five years of development, researchers from Arizona State University and the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have successfully killed cancer in mice by starving it to death. How have they achieved it? They have constructed nanobots out of unfolded DNA, an enzyme called thrombin, which is responsible for clotting blood and tumor targeting DNA. How it works? The blood-clotting enzyme is trapped inside folded DNA and it flows through the blood stream until the tumor targeting DNA detects cancer cells and triggered by it, unfolds itself releasing the enzyme. Because the cancer isn’t able to feed itself through clotted bloodstream it dies off. No other tissues were affected and degraded by this treatment and the nanorobots degrade themselves from the body within 24 hours after attacking tumor cells. In 3 out of 8 mixes the tumor has completely regressed and the median survival time of cancer injected mice more than doubled from 20 to 45 days. The method was also used to treat mice lung cancer and visible results of tumor shrinkage appeared after just two weeks. These results are very promising and I hope it can be used on humans in recent future, as an additional, or full cancer treatment.
Graphic explaining how do the blood clotting nanorobots work.
Another example of nanorobots being useful in medicine are cell-sized robots created by MIT researchers. They have probably constructed world smallest robots so far. These are so small, thus so light, that they are able to stay suspended infinitely in air or liquid. These nanorobots need no external power. They are literally mini circuit boards that can gather and save information. They can be deployed and then recovered, for the information to be later analysed. There are a lot of potential use cases for this kind of nanorobots. They could be injected and then retrieved into humans in search of chemicals characteristic for certain diseases, or inflammations, or other diagnostics in other systems in nature such as oceans, rivers, air, or hydraulic systems.
Illustration of a robo-cell
Researchers at University of California in San Diego have developed tiny nanorobots that can clean blood out of toxins and bacteria that produces them. They are build out of tiny, gold nanowires coated in a hybrid of platelet and red blood cell membranes. This allows the nanorobots to perform two tasks at once. Red blood cells are responsible for absorbing toxins and bacteria, while platelets are responsible for binding pathogens. The body made out of gold nanowire makes it possible for the robots to be powerless, as they can be moved, transported by using ultrasound. Because of that they can be moved relatively quickly to the desired area. These nanorobots are about 25 times smaller that the average width of human hair. After just 5 minutes, of these nanorobots working, tested blood samples had 3 times less bacteria and toxins in them. This shows how effective they are, and imagine how much work they could do if we had a ton of them not just few manually constructed samples.
Colored image of golden nanorobots coated in hybrid coating.
An important thing to keep in mind is that all of the above are just proofs of concept. These technologies exist only in labs and don’t have real life applications yet, thus impact of human lives. I think that these are just like early computers. A good idea but not so many use cases, but with huge potential for an amazing development. Just imagine what people could achieve with little controllable nanorobots. Microoperations from the inside, unclothing vessels, or maybe micro improvements of our bodies, that give extreme results?
What do you think about the topic?
Here are two articles I recommend if you are interested in the topic:
Nanobots in 2018: Three recent advances shaping the future of research
Nanorobots: Where We Are Today and Why Their Future Has Amazing Potential
Sources:
https://www.ft.com/content/57c9f432-de6d-11e7-a0d4-0944c5f49e46
http://news.mit.edu/2018/cell-sized-robots-sense-their-environment-0723
https://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/cell_like_nanorobots_clear_bacteria_and_toxins_from_blood
https://biodesign.asu.edu/news/cancer-fighting-nanorobots-programmed-seek-and-destroy-tumors
and a video that inspired me to write this article (I highly recommend this channel):
These devices can become extremely useful for diagnostic purposes in the body, for example to pass through the digestive tract searching for signs of inflammation or other disease indicators. However I wonder if they would be too energy thirsty.