Progress in Nanorobotics for Advancing Biomedicine.

Journal: IEEE transactions on bio-medical engineering
Published Date:

Abstract

Nanorobotics, which has long been a fantasy in the realm of science fiction, is now a reality due to the considerable developments in diverse fields including chemistry, materials, physics, information and nanotechnology in the past decades. Not only different prototypes of nanorobots whose sizes are nanoscale are invented for various biomedical applications, but also robotic nanomanipulators which are able to handle nano-objects obtain substantial achievements for applications in biomedicine. The outstanding achievements in nanorobotics have significantly expanded the field of medical robotics and yielded novel insights into the underlying mechanisms guiding life activities, remarkably showing an emerging and promising way for advancing the diagnosis & treatment level in the coming era of personalized precision medicine. In this review, the recent advances in nanorobotics (nanorobots, nanorobotic manipulations) for biomedical applications are summarized from several facets (including molecular machines, nanomotors, DNA nanorobotics, and robotic nanomanipulators), and the future perspectives are also presented.

Authors

  • Mi Li
    State Key Laboratory of Drug Delivery and Pharmacokinetics, Tianjin Institute of Pharmaceutical Research, Tianjin, 300301, China.
  • Ning Xi
    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA. Electronic address: xin@egr.msu.edu.
  • Yuechao Wang
    State Key Laboratory of Robotics, Shenyang Institute of Automation, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, Liaoning, P. R. China.
  • Lianqing Liu