A group of scientists from Edinburgh and Shanghai University Jiao Tong have developed tiny robots known as nanobots that have the potential to fight brain aneurysms from within. This groundbreaking technology is expected to save thousands of lives annually.
Brain hemorrhages, often caused by a rupture in an aneurysm (a blood-filled bulge in the arteries of the brain), claim the lives of approximately 500,000 people worldwide each year. The new method offers a way to control internal bleeding point with minimal invasion.
Nanobots are remarkable for their size, with a diameter of only 300 nanometers, which is about 20 times smaller than a human red blood cell. These tiny devices possess magnetic properties and are designed to deliver drugs that promote blood coagulation directly into the aneurysm site.
Each nanobot is enclosed in a protective shell that dissolves at a specific temperature, allowing for controlled drug release. This feature ensures treatment accuracy and safety, preventing drug spread to unwanted areas of the body.
Researchers successfully tested the nanobots on laboratory models and a small group of rabbits. Hundreds of billions of nanobots were introduced into arteries and then remotely controlled using magnets and medical visualization.
Dr. Tsuzhou, one of the research leaders, stated: “Nanorobots represent a new frontier in medicine. In the future, they have the potential to enable surgical interventions with lower risk than traditional methods and deliver medications with the utmost precision to hard-to-access areas of the body.”
Once the nanobots reached their target, researchers used external magnetic sources to gather them into a cluster and heat them to their “melting” temperature. This process released a natural protein that promotes blood coagulation, effectively sealing the aneurysm and preventing or halting brain hemorrhage.
The results of this study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Small, highlight the immense potential of nanotechnology in the field of medicine. Scientists are confident that their development is a step towards a future where nanobots can perform complex tasks within the human body, such as precise drug delivery and organ repair, in the least invasive manner possible.