| Researchers from the German Institute for Integrated Nanoscience and Technology (IIN), IFW, Dresden, have developed 3D printed robots that are driven by bull sperm cells that can be loaded with a cervical cancer drug called doxorubicin hydrochloride , One day can be used to treat human patients.  Several months have passed since we heard about the incredible 3D printed sperm being developed at the Comprehensive Institute of Nanoscience and Technology in Dresden, Germany, and the same researchers now have the good news: They have published a paper on their recent work and said that their latest anti-cancer athlete - again made with bull sperm - shows great promise.
Each bio-hybrid sperm micro-robot is composed of sperm from the bull and is combined with a plastic 3D printed microstructure covered with an iron-based coating that allows the researchers to magnetically 'guide' where robots are needed and then micro Four structurally flexible arms release sperm cells to target cancer cells.
Curiously, though it sounds like sperm are actually very useful for this task as they have the ability to swim in the female reproductive tract, and better yet, sperm cells naturally fuse with egg cells and can repeat cancer cell skills, Allow sperm to release important cervical cancer drugs in cancer cells.
The drug the researchers are currently using is doxorubicin hydrochloride that can be loaded into the head of each sperm cell.Usefully, the drug has no significant effect on sperm cells, so even with important medical supplies, It can also move on. These 3D-printed toasters are not yet ready for use in humans, but researchers in Dresden have been successfully tested in laboratory dishes, and finally, they hope to experiment with animals and then replace the bull sperm with humans Sperm However, until significant progress can be made, researchers need to overcome a few barriers: for beginners, they want to make the plastic structure of a robot biodegradable, dissolve it immediately after drug delivery, which allows the immune response and Other reactions are minimized.
Another hurdle involves finding a way to guide multiple sperm cells at one time.Nowadays, researchers can control one robot at a time, but need to complete multiple robots at a time in order to provide the necessary dose, but doing so requires better imaging Technology to allow physicians to monitor the progress of small robots. Currently, the spatial resolution of magnetic resonance and ultrasound imaging systems is about 100 microns, which is not enough to accomplish because the sperm heads only measure 5x10 microns.
Researchers said the researchers' goal is to create a high-resolution system that can monitor the entire shampoo in real time, and despite these challenges, researchers in Dresden are very optimistic that their unusual technology will eventually be For their intended purpose, they even thought it could be used to solve other forms of cancer other than cervical cancer, including ovarian cancer and uterine cancer, using robotic sperm injection into the female reproductive system using a procedure similar to artificial insemination.
The latest paper by the investigator, Sperm-Hybrid Miniature Motors for Targeted Drug Delivery, has been published in the ACS Nano-Journal by Xu Haifeng, Mariana San Marcos, Marignana, Lucas Schwartz, Franziskahebenstrit and Oliver G. Schmidt. |
