Endoscopy-assisted magnetic navigation of biohybrid soft microrobots with rapid endoluminal delivery and imaging.

Journal: Science robotics
PMID: 34043547

Abstract

High-precision delivery of microrobots at the whole-body scale is of considerable importance for efforts toward targeted therapeutic intervention. However, vision-based control of microrobots, to deep and narrow spaces inside the body, remains a challenge. Here, we report a soft and resilient magnetic cell microrobot with high biocompatibility that can interface with the human body and adapt to the complex surroundings while navigating inside the body. We achieve time-efficient delivery of soft microrobots using an integrated platform called endoscopy-assisted magnetic actuation with dual imaging system (EMADIS). EMADIS enables rapid deployment across multiple organ/tissue barriers at the whole-body scale and high-precision delivery of soft and biohybrid microrobots in real time to tiny regions with depth up to meter scale through natural orifice, which are commonly inaccessible and even invisible by conventional endoscope and medical robots. The precise delivery of magnetic stem cell spheroid microrobots (MSCSMs) by the EMADIS transesophageal into the bile duct with a total distance of about 100 centimeters can be completed within 8 minutes. The integration strategy offers a full clinical imaging technique-based therapeutic/intervention system, which broadens the accessibility of hitherto hard-to-access regions, by means of soft microrobots.

Authors

  • Ben Wang
    Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin N.T., Hong Kong, China.
  • Kai Fung Chan
    Chow Yuk Ho Technology Centre for Innovative Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
  • Ke Yuan
    Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong.
  • Qianqian Wang
    School of Teacher Education, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China.
  • Xianfeng Xia
    Chow Yuk Ho Technology Centre for Innovative Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
  • Lidong Yang
    Inner Mongolia Key Laboratory of Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Image Processing, School of Information Engineering, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou, 014010, China.
  • Ho Ko
    Department of Medicine and Therapeutics and School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
  • Yi-Xiang J Wang
    Department of Imaging and Interventional Radiology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong.
  • Joseph Jao Yiu Sung
    Department of Medicine and Therapeutics and School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
  • Philip Wai Yan Chiu
  • Li Zhang
    Department of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, College of Animal Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China.

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