According to Xinhua News Agency, Washington, June 27th, the Chinese research team has designed a micro-robot that is expected to transport cells in the human body and has broad application prospects in precision therapy, regenerative medicine and minimally invasive surgery.
A study published in the journal Science and Robotics on the 27th showed that the Sun Dong team of the City University of Hong Kong used 3D laser printing technology to prepare a micro-robot with a spherical hole structure, the size of which is equivalent to human hair. diameter.
Sun Dong, director of the Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering at City University of Hong Kong, said that the robot based on 'SU-8 photoresist' has a thorn-like structure that can be used as a cell attachment point to greatly improve cell loading capacity. Said, the surface of the robot is sputtered with a layer of metallic nickel and titanium, so the robot can be driven by the magnetic field.
The researchers selected zebrafish as the experimental object, and injected the micro-robot loaded with stem cells into the yolk of the zebrafish (500 to 700 microns in diameter), successfully achieving the purpose of controlling the movement of the micro-robot through the magnetic field inside the complex organism.