A team of scientists from the United States, South Korea and Switzerland has been working on a technology that could be able to stop heart diseases. It is a surgery that uses nanomachines to unclog the arteries of the heart.
A few mice are to become the first test patients for a brand new surgical method to be performed by microsurgeons. A tiny group of nanorobots with magnetically charged particles will be performing the surgery to unclog arteries of the heart. The molecular robots will first be delivering drugs to help soften the clogged arteries and then charge into battle drilling in to blast apart heart blockages.
MinJun Kim, a biomedical engineer and professor at the University of Drexler, will be spearheading a group of scientists from Switzerland, South Korea and the United States who is currently working on the technology. Kim states that the robots are controlled by harnessing the magnetic resonance imaging's power. MRI is an imaging device commonly used in hospitals that utilises pulse wave energy and magnetic fields to capture images of bones and other organs inside of a human body. MRIs working with nanotechnology can serve as a command centre for observing and steering the magnet-charged micro machines as they navigate their way around inside the human body.
The biomed engineer has already tried this in the university's laboratory, but this is a strategy that still needs fine-tuning before it goes out to be tested on humans. The nanorobots still need drilling techniques to be perfected.
South Korea's national hospital will be trying out this method with mice this summer. If successful, the team will be moving on to test this strategical surgery to pigs and rabbits. If all goes accordingly, the group will be launching the nanosurgeons to human application via catheter injections in 2019.
Nanotechnology has been tried several times for many years to serve as mini surgeons inside the human body. It has been peddled as a potential solution for cancer detection and an aid to surgeries that concern the eyes.
Verily has already started a partnership with Verb Surgical in 2015 to build surgical robots. However, little is known about how far the renamed Google Life Sciences division might be with its robots for surgery. In addition, there have not been any definitive human trials as of this moment.
