Robots thinner than a human hair that turn from solid to liquid could help treat cancer

Small robots that are thinner than a human hair could help fight cancer tumours.

Scientists created 3D-printed microbots that have the ability to take drugs directly to cancer cells. A trial in mice found they helped to shrink the size of tumours in the bladder.

The tiny robots measure just 30 microns (thousands of a millimetre) in diameter and can turn from solid to liquid and back. This means that treatment drugs can hopefully be guided directly to the site of a tumour to ensure the drug is released in a controlled way.

Experts now hope a study in humans will follow the groundbreaking mice study.

“Rather than putting a drug into the body and letting it diffuse everywhere, now we can guide our microrobots directly to a tumour site and release the drug in a controlled and efficient way,” researcher Wei Gao, of Caltech University in the US, told The Sun.

Scientists destroy 99% of cancer cells with groundbreaking new method koto_feja/iStock

“We think this is a very promising platform for drug delivery and precision surgery.

“Looking to the future, we could evaluate using this robot as a platform to deliver different types of therapeutic payloads or agents for different conditions.

“In the long term, we hope to test this in humans.”

Scientists also recently discovered a possible way salmonella could be used to fight bowel cancer.

Salmonella is a bacteria which can cause food poisoning. The bacteria can be found in many foods, including sprouts and other vegetables, eggs, chicken, pork, fruits, and even processed foods.

In the groundbreaking study led by the University of Birmingham in collaboration with the University of Glasgow, researchers found that salmonella could be engineered to allow T cells to kill cancer cells. T cells are a type of white blood cell that protects the body from infection and disease.

The team used mice with colorectal cancer and found salmonella typically stops T cells from fighting cancer cells as it depletes an amino acid called asparagine.

The researchers propose genetically engineering bacteria to avoid targeting asparagine, which should enable T cells to work effectively alongside bacterial treatment.

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