In science fiction, tiny robots called nanites are often mentioned, capable of performing almost any task, for example, fighting off viral infections or delivering necessary drugs into living organisms.
I think this news will seem incredible to many readers, but nanites have already been created and have been successfully tested to deliver the drug inside the body.
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have successfully used microscopic robots to deliver drugs inside a living organism without any side effects.
Each of these robots, equipped with a molecular engine in the form of tiny tubes 20 nm long and 5 micrometers in diameter, carried drug particles. In this case, gas bubbles formed during a chemical reaction inside the stomach of a living creature served as fuel for these micromotors.
Photo: hi-news.ru
The test subject was a live laboratory mouse, which, as the scientists note, remained intact and healthy after the experiment. For a while…
The nanites' movement speed inside the body was "only" 60 micrometers per second, so it took the micro-robots some time to get to the stomach lining and stay there for 12 hours. After achieving their main goal, the nanites injected nanoparticles of the drug into the intestinal tissue.
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After euthanizing and dissecting a laboratory mouse, scientists found out that nanites did not cause any damage to body tissues, and also did not increase the level of toxic infection: the nanites themselves were made from zinc, which is inherently one of the most important nutrients for living organisms.
Most likely, scientists will try to find a new type of fuel for nanites (gas bubbles + blood = a bad combination), but even now the history of medicine sees a huge scientific and technological breakthrough.