back to article Boffins build blood-swimming medical microbot

A research team has developed a swimming microrobot designed to navigate through your bloodstream – all with your best interests at heart. Or at lung. Or at the far-flung islets of Langerhans. This diagnostic and therapeutic innovation was announced at this week's International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) by …

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  1. Bill Neal
    Joke

    Calling Dr. Poon...

    Dr. Poon to O.R., We have a little problem here.

    ahh but seriously, amazing stuff here. What wonderful times we live in. I for one can't wait until they figure out how to make grey goo. Keep up the good work!

  2. MooseNC
    Thumb Up

    Heh, what?

    The Poon Research Group?? Are you serious? Totally not the research I a group named that would be undertaking...

    And Dr. Poon?? OMFG. Yea, this has to be April 1st come early.

    1. Graham Marsden
      Coat

      Re: Heh, what?

      Don't you know? He works alongside the famous Chinese Doctor Tang...

  3. frank ly
    Facepalm

    re. the simulation

    If it did actually tilt when turning, as illustrated, then it would drive into the lower wall of the blood vessel. 'Experience' of fixed wing aircraft, or maybe motorbikes, does not translate into other moving devices.

    1. James Micallef Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: re. the simulation

      It also seems to me to be too huge for all but the biggest arteries

      1. Yesnomaybe

        Re: Re: re. the simulation

        Yes, and can't keep up with the speed of the blood-flow either

  4. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    So 26 years from proposal to build.

    Mine will be the one with the rather battered copy of KE Drexlers Engines of Creation in the pocket.

    However as Drexler proposed a more "biological" model of nanotechnology (build up by atoms rather than start with a wafer and strip chunks off) he expected them to be mfg by the *billions*.

    But it's a start.

    1. Gordon 10

      Re: So 26 years from proposal to build.

      To be fair until the noggins come up with a more effecient way of building at the atomic level than with electron microscope then true nanotechnology remains pretty far away mores the pity

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Happy

        Re: Re: So 26 years from proposal to build.

        To be fair until the noggins come up with a more effecient way of building at the atomic level than with electron microscope then true nanotechnology remains pretty far away mores the pity

        Not really.

        On the whole the MEMS people have shown more initiative they're more used to *making* stuff that moves.

        Biologists and virologists are used to *studying* things that move..

        Chemists are used to studying things that move when they are warm.

        The 3 other groups *have* made "devices" that are on a similar (or in fact substantially smaller) but typically by the mole (IE 6x10^23) of something.

  5. Winkypop Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Conspiracy nuts dream...

    Wait for it:

    "The Illuminati World Government is secretly putting robotic chips in peoples"

    I'll continue to consume my chips the traditional way, with a Pint of best.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    swimming speed

    doesnt blood flow a bit faster than that?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hardly 'nano' tech

    more than 2mm x 2mm is hardly 'nano' technology, and is gonna be severely limited where it can go in a body. I'll pass, thanks.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Happy

      Re: Hardly 'nano' tech

      That's sort of the point. While making big things one atom (or molecule) at a time is tought making *lots* of small (or ideally in this case *really* ) small things is quite easy *once* you've worked out the design.

      You're quite right it's *very* much a proof of concept rather than a prototype. While I'm not sure there are *no* blood vessels big enough to take this thing It's likely to be a pretty short list.

  8. Yeah Right 2
    Coat

    "Ada Poon"

    I wonder if that phrase was ever uttered by Charles Babbage.

    I'll just get my coat and be off to burn in hell for all eternity now.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    And how does it come out?

    Also, this device is too big to travel in many of our arteries and veins. I agree with some other fellows here: I would never let them put this inside me with this size. And I doubt this video properly illustrates how blood really flows inside your body. Looks like it is flying, not swimming against the current.

    And don't get me started on the shape....

  10. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Joke

    Rounded edges?

    "Odds are that a blood-bound bot will have rounded edges"

    Not if they can afford the Apple licence fee it won't.

  11. mikeyd
    Joke

    I'll wait for the one with the cupholder and in-flight entertainment system.

  12. Daedalus
    Headmaster

    Fry me to the moon

    1.86 GHz is somewhat below the 2.45 GHz used in most microwave ovens. Which penetrates organic material just fine, if my morning cholesterol sandwich is anything to go by.

    Wavelength has little to do with it. 1.86 GHz waves are in the 15 cm range, way bigger than the 'bot. Ideal aerial length is something you care about when signals are faint - doesn't seem to apply here.

  13. Eddy Ito
    Terminator

    Oh dear

    It's hard enough dealing with machines when the rise around us, how are we supposed to handle the ones rising from inside? This ain't going to be pretty.

  14. Terry Cloth
    FAIL

    Hmmm...solid stuff in my bloodstream...

    Don't they call them ``clots'', and they give you heart attacks and strokes? I'll let someone else do the beta testing on this one.

    1. Andus McCoatover
      Windows

      Re: Hmmm...solid stuff in my bloodstream...

      It won't be a human, that's for 'bloody' certain.

      I first thought "pig", but then - elephant is more likely.

      "African or Indian?" "Er..I don't know! - .....WAAAAH!"

  15. Muckminded

    Huckleberry Shim

    I don't want any roustabouts around my telomeres.Once a salty-tongued DNA pirate gets in there, trouble's all one can expect.

  16. ravenviz Silver badge
    Coat

    My

    That is one *big* penny!

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