Spanish scientists have developed a nanobot that, when introduced into the bloodstream, can eliminate cancerous tumors in the bladder by up to 90 percent.
The Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, in collaboration with ICFO - The Institute of Photonic Sciences, and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), and Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), has created a robot with a diameter of 450 nanometers. To visualize it, its image needs to be magnified two billion times.
Bladder cancer in men is the most common type of cancer affecting men. Although the mortality rate is relatively low, all tumors tend to recur within five years.
New Research About Nano-Robots
In a study conducted on mice, researchers observed that the use of small robots could eliminate the need for multiple treatments for tumors.
Current treatments for bladder cancer include surgery and chemotherapy, with costs exceeding $65,000. The reason is the need for multiple hospital visits for the patient due to the spread of tumors. However, a new study claims that nanorobots could achieve success in just one treatment.
The surface of these robots used in the research was coated with golden nanoparticles, allowing researchers to observe how these robots navigate through the blood and attack tumors.
In the research, the team released these nanorobots into the blood of mice affected by bladder cancer and observed their distribution in the body. The robots, equipped with enzymes, react with urea present in urine, enabling movement and effectively eliminating the cancerous tumor in the bladder.
The team observed that these nanobots increase the pH balance near the tumor, causing the excess cellular scaffolding to break down. Due to the spongy nature of the tumor, the robots are absorbed into it, effectively treating the cancerous nodules with therapeutic agents.
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