VIDEO: Tiny Robotic Hands Could Deliver Drugs, Assist Surgeons

Robots are Getting More Nimble and Clever All the Time but, the Fundamental Difficulty in Creating Robotic Hands has Kept them from Being Useful on the Small Scale. To Operate in Confined Spaces, you Need a Machine to be Less Clunky and More Flexible than Current Mechanical Constructs. That’s Where the Emerging Field of Soft Robotics Comes in. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University Have Created a New Type of Microscopic Gripper from Flexible Materials that Could One Day Aid in Drug Delivery or Surgical Procedures. As an Unexpected Bonus, they Look Super-Creepy. The Microgrippers Look like Tiny 6-Pointed Stars Several Millimeters in Diameter When they’re Open but, When Triggered, the Arms of the Star Fold Inward so, the Points Can be Used to Grasp Microscopic Objects. Alternatively, the Gripper Can Start Closed to Contain a Material or Object, then Open to Release it, When they’ve Reached a Certain Location in the Body.


The Microgrippers Designed in this Study are Closed at Temperatures Above and Below 36 Degrees Celsius. When they Hit the Right Temperature, though, the Arms Open Up. Future Versions could be Different Sizes and Operate at Different Temperatures. The Grippers Need No Battery or External Power Source, which Makes them Capable of Getting almost Anywhere in the Body. Like a Number of Past Experiments in Soft Robotics, the Micrograspers are Composed Mainly of Hydrogel. These are Highly-Absorbent Polymers that Can Change Shape When Exposed to Varying Temperatures, thus Producing Mechanical Motion. These Materials are Inexpensive and Versatile but, Even When Contracted they Have Always been Too Flexible to be of Use in Soft Robotics. The Johns Hopkins Team Rectified that, by Combining Hydrogels with Stiff Biodegradable Polymers. That Makes the Points Strong Enough to Wrap Around and Hold onto Objects. Any Microgrippers Left in the Body should Dissolve on their Own. So, Adding the Extra Layer of Polymers Solved One Problem but, there was still No Way to Control Where the Grippers Went after being Introduced into a (Hypothetical) Patient. The Solution to this was the Addition of Magnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles to the Hydrogel. A Magnetic Probe was Used to Show that, the Microgrippers Can be Controlled with this Formulation but, any Method of Generating a Magnetic Field Could do the Same.


One of the Possible Uses for the Microgrippers Researchers Evaluated is as a Tool to Biopsy Cells in a Less Invasive Way. They Found the Arms of the Star were Sturdy Enough to Wrap Around and Remove Cells from Tissue. Rather than Tunneling through Flesh Above the Site of a Potential Tumor to Get a Sample, Doctors could Introduce the Microgrippers in a Different Area and Move them to the Necessary Region to Harvest the Cells Remotely. They Could Even be Used to Disassemble and Remove Smaller Tumors that are Not Operable via Normal Means. The Research was Funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health and it’s just a Basic Demonstration of How these Materials Could be Used. It Opens Up a Whole New Avenue of Research into Microscopic Surgical Tools and Machines that Could Improve Human Health.




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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpJAnFE33w0