Tiny motor allows robots to swim through human body
IT HAS been dubbed the Proteus motor, after the miniature submarine that travelled through the human body in the science fiction movie Fantastic Voyage.
And its Australian creators hope their tiny motor - which is less than the width of three human hairs - will soon power medical nanorobots that can swim through tiny blood vessels into the brain.
James Friend, of Monash University, said that such devices could enter previously unreachable brain areas, unblocking blood clots, cleaning vessels or sending back images to surgeons.
"The first complete device we want to build would have a camera," Professor Friend said.
His team hand-made the microscopic motor using a piezoelectric material like that used in quartz watches or to light gas BBQs.
The strength of their design, which is published in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, was its simplicity, he said. "Simple can be made small."
The piezoelectric material vibrates a spiral structure which drives the rapid spinning of a tail, similar to the flagella that bacteria use to propel themselves along.
Professor Friend said they had shown the motor, which is a quarter of a millimetre wide, had enough power to navigate this type of nanorobot through the bloodstream of a human artery.
Tests of their prototype device in a liquid as viscous as blood were also promising. "It swam."
At present doctors carrying out minimally invasive surgery used catheters to reach parts of the brain in people who have had strokes or other damage. But these were unwieldy, and could puncture arteries, killing the patient, Professor Friend said.
The team plans to conduct animal tests of a nanorobot driven by their motor later this year or early next year.
But Professor Friend cautioned that many technical hurdles needed to be overcome.
Their miniature motor was connected to an electricity supply and a way would need to be found to power it remotely.
The construction of the flagella also needed refinement.
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