In the near future, doctors may be able to treat cancer and other deadly diseases by injecting tiny nano-robots into the bloodstream. We’re not there yet, but researchers say they’re one step closer to turning this science-fiction idea into a scientific reality.
Chemists at Oxford University have created nano-sized particles that can travel through narrow channels. Since microscopes can only detect the movement of objects larger than 10 nanometers, the team found a new way to observe the tiny one-nanometer robots.
“This is the smallest amplitude of motion we’ve ever observed, about one hundred thousand times the diameter of a human hair,” Hagan Bayley, a professor of chemical biology at Oxford University, told The Huffington Post in an email.
The nanobot, which they call The Walker, isn’t the only microbot. Researchers have previously built molecular robots made out of DNA, but those microbots were relatively large and could only work in water, according to Oxford Science Forum.
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In the new study, Bayley and his colleagues built their “walker” using an arsenic-containing molecule and placed it on a track of single-stranded proteins inside a protein hole. As the walker passes through the orbit, a change in flow through the protein pores must occur. By recording these changes, the researchers were able to record the walkers’ movements in detail.
Gokce Su Pulcu, a nanotechnology researcher at the University of Oxford and lead author of the new technology, said: ‘At the moment we can’t control the movement of the walker, it’s quite free. The protein track is kind of like a ramp, and walkers take the easy way out. We hope to be able to use this movement trend to guide it to its desired destination.”
The researchers also hope that one day these nanomachines will be able to deliver drugs inside the human body, or combine to form larger nanomachines that can be manipulated inside cells.