Amazing stuff! Hybrid microrobots combined with nanoparticles and natural microalgae!
"Biohybrid microrobots, which combine the motility of natural micro-organisms with the multifunctionality of synthetic components, are being studied as an alternative to purely synthetic microrobots. Designs based on biocompatible and deformable materials serve as novel platforms for use in vivo, enhancing the potential of microrobots for biomedical applications. In a recent study ... researchers describe a bioinspired microrobot platform consisting of nanoparticle-modified algae for active delivery of antibiotics to treat lung disease. ..."
From the abstract:
"Bioinspired microrobots capable of actively moving in biological fluids have attracted considerable attention for biomedical applications because of their unique dynamic features that are otherwise difficult to achieve by their static counterparts. Here we use click chemistry to attach antibiotic-loaded neutrophil membrane-coated polymeric nanoparticles to natural microalgae, thus creating hybrid microrobots for the active delivery of antibiotics in the lungs in vivo. The microrobots show fast speed (>110 µm s−1) in simulated lung fluid and uniform distribution into deep lung tissues, low clearance by alveolar macrophages and superb tissue retention time (>2 days) after intratracheal administration to test animals. In a mouse model of acute Pseudomonas aeruginosa pneumonia, the microrobots effectively reduce bacterial burden and substantially lessen animal mortality, with negligible toxicity. Overall, these findings highlight the attractive functions of algae–nanoparticle hybrid microrobots for the active in vivo delivery of therapeutics to the lungs in intensive care unit settings."
Nanoparticle-modified microrobots for in vivo antibiotic delivery to treat acute bacterial pneumonia (no public access, but article above provides link to PDF file)
Fig. 1: Preparation and structural characterization of the algae–nanoparticle hybrid microrobot (denoted as ‘algae-NP-robot’).
What a beauty! Pneumonia-fighting microrobot Coloured SEM image of a microrobot made of an algae cell (green) covered with antibiotic-loaded polymer nanoparticles (brown).
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