A CNU research team succeeded in an animal experiment that regenerated knee cartilage using a micro medical robot (nanobot) carrying stem cells.

Professor Choi Eun-pyo (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering) introduced a micro medical robot named 'Stem Cell Navigator' for regenerating damaged knee cartilage. The nanobot carries stem cells from human fat and precisely moves them to the damaged cartilage, and the transplanted stem cells, which are differentiated into chondrocytes, were proven successful in the rabbit and cell experiments. This study overcomes the disadvantages and difficulties of injecting or incising a large amount of cells by conventional invasive procedures and is expected to replace surgical practices fot both degenerative arthritis as well as for artificial joint.

The results of this study were published on January 22nd in Science Robotics (Influence Index 19.4), which is one of the best international academic journals in robot research.
 
This research was co-conducted by Choi Eun-pyo as chief corresponding author, Seon Jong-keun (Department of Orthopedic surgery), Jeong Yong-yeon (Department of Diagnostic imaging), Professor Park Jong-Oh (President of Korea Institute of Medical Microrobotics), and Biot Korea (CEO Jang Young-jun), which is the subject of core technology transfer.