CNU has succeeded in developing ultra-fine medical robots of various shapes that can quickly and accurately deliver therapeutic agents according to the location and type of disease.

Researchers of the CNU Robotics Research Initiative (Director Park Jong-oh), including Professor Park Jong-oh, Professor Choi Eun-pyo, Professor Kim Chang-se, and PhD Candidate Go Gwang-joon, developed a microrobot that can precisely deliver the treatment while changing its shape according to the type of disease and location.

For the treatment of solid cancer, it is necessary to overcome blood flow and deliver the therapeutic agent in blood vessels where blood flows at a high speed. Therefore, an elliptical microrobot with fast movements at speeds over 785 μm per second is required. On the other hand, in the case of a knee cartilage injury, it is necessary to go through a highly viscous synovial fluid in a three-dimensional free space. Therefore, a circular shaped robot that can mount a large amount of therapeutic agents are required over one with fast speed.

In addition, it was found that if the shape of the microrobot can be changed, the low target efficiency expressed in liver tumor embolization and knee cartilage regeneration and the disadvantages of invasive procedures, can be overcome.

Microrobots can carry stem cells, immune cells, or anticancer drugs on the surface of a porous microstructure of natural polymers (chitosan) with a size of at least 200μm (for comparison, 1μm [or 1 micrometer] is 1 millionth of a meter), and when the task is fulfilled, the microrobot is slowly decomposed in the system. 

Such research results were evaluated as a breakthrough in the unbalanced research trend of microrobots, which has so far been biased towards material development and delivery of treatments, to increase delivery efficiency of treatments. The paper was published in the international journal ACS Nano (Impact Factor: 14.6).

This research was conducted as a part of the Micro Medical Robot Commercialization Technology Development Project (Chief Researcher: Professor Park Jong-oh), which is supported by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Gwangju Metropolitan City also invested in this project.

The researchers said, “Compared to medical robotics in general, micro-medical robotics is a field in which Korea has global competitive power, and it also is meaningful in terms of technological diversity. To accomplish advances in micro robotic technology from this original technology, we will do our best to prove its effectiveness through clinical tests.”