Nanorobots deliver drugs directly to cancerous tumors

The possibilities of robots are endless, and another one of these possibilities has just been discovered as researchers have developed nanorobots capable of traveling through the blood stream to deliver drugs directly into cancerous tumors.

These nanorobots inject medication directly into the tumor, avoiding damaging the healthy cells and organs of the patient. Researchers from Polytechnique Montreal, Université de Montreal and McGill University, also in Montreal, developed a drug treatment that can decrease the dosage of toxic drugs needed to treat the cancer because of the direct treatment into the tumor.

"These legions of nanorobotic agents were actually composed of more than 100 million flagellated bacteria—and therefore self-propelled—and loaded with drugs that moved by taking the most direct path between the drug's injection point and the area of the body to cure," said Professor Sylvain Martel, who headed the research team. "The drug's propelling force was enough to travel efficiently and enter deep inside the tumors."

In a study conducted on mice, the nanorobots successfully treated colorectal tumors. The nanorobots are able to detected the tumor through the decreased amount of oxygen to the cancerous area, known as hypoxic zones. These hypoxic zones are resistant to most cancer therapies, including radiotherapy, so the success in the nanorobots treating these zones is a tremendous achievement to cancer care.

"This innovative use of nanotransporters will have an impact not only on creating more advanced engineering concepts and original intervention methods, but it also throws the door wide open to the synthesis of new vehicles for therapeutic, imaging and diagnostic agents," Martel said. "Chemotherapy, which is so toxic for the entire human body, could make use of these natural nanorobots to move drugs directly to the targeted area, eliminating the harmful side effects while also boosting its therapeutic effectiveness."