Tech & Innovation in Healthcare

Robots can bend, expand, and twist inside the body.

Healthcare providers are limited in their diagnostic and treatment capabilities to what currently exists on the market, which can make assessing and caring for internal issues complicated. Tiny devices that can be implanted or ingested into the body can allow providers to accurately analyze conditions, deliver pharmaceuticals, and provide wireless stimulation to organs.

Learn how researchers are developing micro robots with skin and muscles for use inside the body.

Evaluate E-Skin Robots

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina State University, Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue University, and the Bai Lab collaborated to design soft robots that are safe for use inside the body. The robots are built

to resemble shapes from nature, such as seedpods and starfish, so they can easily adapt to the anatomical structure they’re attaching to, which allows the robots to efficiently perform different tasks. The researchers tested their designs on mice with in vivo studies.

“These soft robots can perform a variety of well-controlled movements, including bending, expanding and twisting inside biological environments,” said Lin Zhang, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences (APS) at UNC Chapel Hill in a news release.

The robots are constructed with a bilayer design consisting of an electronic skin (e-skin) and artificial muscles, so the robots can sense their surroundings and naturally alter their movements. The “two integrated, functional layers … emulate relations between sensory skin and underlying muscles,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

The flexible e-skin layer is crafted with functional nanocomposites “based on an in situ solution-based fabrication approach.” This layer also has silver nanowires and conductive polymers to mirror the sensory properties of real human skin. This soft and pliable base helps the robots attach to body tissues gently to avoid possible harm. On the other hand, the artificial muscle layer is constructed from poly hydrogel and can contract and relax (like natural muscles) when activated with a trigger.

Choose the Correct Design for the Body Structure

The robots’ adaptability provides versatility to help physicians make accurate medical diagnoses and create informed treatment decisions. Also known as a thera-gripper, the robots can reside in or attach to organs to capture measurements, monitor levels, and more.

The star-shaped design is ideal for:

• Heart: The robot’s appendages attach to the cardiac muscle, and monitors electrophysiological activity, measures heart contractions, and helps regulate rhythm by providing an electrical stimulation.
• Bladder: The thera-gripper can also gently affix to a patient’s bladder. The robot can measure the volume of the organ and deliver electrical stimulation to treat an overactive bladder, the latter of which helps improve treatment efficacy and patient care.

A straight robot design is ideal for:

• Stomach: The robot is ingested by the patient and expands once the thera-gripper reaches the stomach. Inside the organ, the robot can deliver drugs over an extended timeframe as well as monitor pH levels.
• Blood vessels: The cuff design wraps around a blood vessel to measure blood pressure precisely.

“We can vary designs of the soft robots, enabling various motions (e.g., bending, expanding, and twisting), and corresponding 3D deformed configurations,” the researchers wrote.

What’s Next for the Researchers?

The researchers identified several challenges in the study that held back soft robot progress. These challenges include:

• Materials
• Manufacturing technologies
• Mechanics to coordinate with body tissue softness
• Biocompatibility

Researchers are hopeful that the success of the robots in live animals shows promise for real-world healthcare applications, which could include diagnostics, drug delivery, artificial organs, surgery, and rehabilitation.

“This innovative approach to robot design not only broadens the scope of medical devices but also highlights the potential for future advancements in the synergistic interaction between soft implantable robots and biological tissues,” said Wubin Bai, PhD, assistant professor at APS and the research’s principal investigator.

Resource: Review the UNC Chapel Hill research study here.