Until now, one had to go back to science fiction (or even horror) movies to find tiny robots the size of worms that inject themselves into the body, with the more or less fantastic goal of controlling human beings in a world dominated by machines. The collective imagination is one thing, but in a laboratory surrounded by the Swiss mountains on the outskirts of Zurich, nanorobotics is already a reality and not a feature film. It is a science that is becoming bigger and bigger and that in a few years will provide surprising results that will change our quality of life.
There, in Switzerland, is the Barcelona-based researcher Salvador Pané, professor of Materials for Robotics at the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems and co-director of the Multi-Scale Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich, one of the world's pioneering centers in this discipline, which takes the famous law of the growing miniaturization of technology to the extreme.
Pané was one of the invited speakers at the Nit de la Robotica event, organized last week by Enginyers Industrials de Catalunya, for his contribution in magnetic micro and nanorobots to transport drugs in our body or that can electrostimulate tissues, among other applications.
This time we are not talking about mechanical arms that move components, like in a factory, but about something infinitely smaller. "Imagine a tenth of a red blood cell," Pané tells this newspaper. In his work he studies how to inject tiny machines into the human body through a probe.
So that they can move within the body, they reproduce movements similar to those of a sperm (with the oscillation of its tail) or of a bacterium (such as the helical undulations of a helicobacter). The motor, so to speak, of this nanorobot would be a magnetic field.
Using a force similar to that exerted by the magnet on metals applied from the outside, the nanorobot walks inside the human body. This is also a challenge at the material level, because metals have to be used, in this case an iron oxide (cobalt is toxic and is discarded). And what would this robot do once inside us?
For example, if industrial machines use grippers to assemble products, the nanorobot could be used to deliver exact doses of drugs to the specific area that needs them most, reducing drug side effects, as well as limiting the exposure of healthcare personnel. to harmful substances.
It would also have the ability to stimulate nerve cells using electrical impulses (think of spinal cord injuries), which would mean a gigantic advance in therapies (the plan foresees prior experimentation in rats).
Then there is the question of his expulsion from the body once he has done the job. The possibility that the nanorobot dissolves biologically is being considered, that is, that the body ends up eliminating it on its own.
In the midst of a debate on the automation of jobs, the applications of this nanotechnology would not be a direct threat to employment. On the contrary, engineers from different disciplines are needed for its implementation. By being able to monitor the nanorobot even remotely, more hospital centers will have the possibility of offering these treatments.
From there, the nanorobots could be extended, according to Pané, to other sectors such as cleaning and water treatment to degrade polluting elements. This expert also participates in some start-ups to expand the business.
A sector that in Switzerland has generous public funding, which here in Spain would be unthinkable. Meanwhile, the army of micromachines advances unstoppably into the future.
