Tiny Robots in Disguise Combat Bacteria in the Blood – Info Robotic

Researchers have come up with all sorts of ways to propel tiny robots deep into the human body to perform tasks, such as delivering drugs and taking biopsies. Now, there’s a nanorobot that can clean up infections in blood. 

Directed by ultrasound, the tiny robots, made of gold nanowires with a biological coating, dart around blood, attach to bacteria, and neutralize toxins produced by the bacteria. It’s like injecting millions of miniature decoys into blood to distract an infection from attacking the real human cells.  

The invention, developed in the labs of Joseph Wang and Liangfang Zhang at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), was described today in Science Robotics. The researchers hope the robotic detoxification system could provide an alternative to the multiple, broad-spectrum antibiotics currently used to treat life-threatening infections—one that can work in minutes.