Even more precisely
Micro robots will deliver stem cells exactly to the address
Ksenia Vasilyeva, Vesti
Studies of stem cells show the prospects of their use for the treatment of a variety of conditions, ranging from autoimmune diseases to the consequences of severe injuries. One of the most important conditions for successful stem cell treatment is their delivery "exactly to the address".
Despite the many developments and experiments conducted by scientists in this field, in general practice, the method of delivering stem cells to the right place in the body remains unchanged – by injection.
In some cases, this is a problem, because it is not easy to inject into many anatomically complex and hard-to-reach areas of the body. In addition, this method of administration can threaten tissue damage and the occurrence of various complications.
Another important factor that encourages scientists to look for new ways to deliver stem cells is their low survival rate during the injection route.
An international team of scientists from several research centers in South Korea and Switzerland took up this issue. In their previous research, researchers have already tried to solve the problem of delivering various substances into the human body by injecting tiny micro robots directly into the bloodstream.
In the new work, the experts decided to try out a similar approach for stem cell transfer. In the new work, the experts decided to try out a similar approach for stem cell transfer. The experiment showed that micro-robots controlled by a magnetic field can transfer stem cells exactly to the target, preserving their viability as much as possible.
Using the method of laser stereolithography, the experimenters created robots of various shapes: spherical and in the form of a curl or spiral. The robots were controlled by an external magnetic field, and had a porous surface for the best adhesion with stem cells.
Using the developed system, the scientists injected micro robots with different types of stem cells on board into a liver tissue culture, into a piece of living tissue with blood vessels and into a rat brain ventricle preparation.
A lot of tested materials allowed us to see how micro robots will behave in tissues and organs of a very different type and complexity of structure.
In order to check how well and accurately such targeted delivery works in a living organism, scientists "loaded" micro-robots with human stem cells and implanted them into the abdominal cavity of a mouse. The micro-robots showed good controllability and "responsiveness" to the effects of a magnetic field.
The researchers emphasize that the results of their work are still preliminary. In the future, it is necessary to check the safety of the proposed method, as well as to develop a way to control swarms of similar machines in the human body.
In addition, at the moment, the only way to determine the position of a micro robot in a living organism is to use magnetic resonance. And such a technique can interfere with the control process.
You can learn more about the results of the work of an international group of researchers by reading a scientific article in the journal Science Robotics (Jeon et al., Magnetically actuated microrobots as a platform for stem cell transplantation).
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