Nanorobot synthesizes the first light direction in the world

Previously, nanorobots were only controlled by magnetic fields, but now the University of Hong Kong successfully built the first nanorobot controlled by light. This research has helped expand the applicability of nanorobot in the treatment of disease at the cellular level.

A research group led by TS. Jinyao Tang of the Department of Chemistry, the University of Hong Kong, has researched and developed the world's first light-driven nanorobot. Just the size of a blood cell, this tiny robot will be injected into the patient's body and help technical devices target targets for surgery, thereby helping doctors perform surgeries. tumor removal technique correctly. This study was published in Nature last October.

Previously, the introduction of tiny robots into the patient's body was only in science fiction. For example, in the movie "Fantastic Voyage" , a group of scientists controlled a nano submarine that was inserted into a patient's body to heal the damage in the brain. Or in the movie "Terminator 2 ", billions of nanorobots are assembled to form T1000 robots. However, in fact, it is difficult to research and manufacture a nanorobot with advanced and sophisticated functions.

Nanorobot illustration.

In 2016, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to scientists who designed the molecular machines. They developed a combination of devices with molecular dimensions, which could be assembled into complex nanomachines to manipulate future DNA and protein. Research and development of nano-sized machines for application in biomedical is a major trend in scientific research from recent years.

Any breakthrough will create important potential for developing new scientific knowledge and treatments for diseases and developing new drugs. However, a difficulty in studying and manufacturing nanorobots is to make these nanostructures respond to the external environment. Each nanorobot is 50 times smaller than a hair diameter, so it is difficult to install ordinary electronic sensors and circuits into nanorobot. Currently, the only method to control remote nanorobot is to use magnetism inside the nanorobot and guide movement through the external magnetic field.

Nanorobot research by TS. Tang and his colleagues are the first in the world to study light-controlled nanorobots and prove their feasibility. With nanostructures, nanorobots can react with light on it like a caterpillar sucked into the light. Dr. Tang describes these nanorobots as "seeing" and "moving toward the light".

This light-driven nanorobot is inspired by green algae. In nature, some green algae have the ability to "light sensor" in their living environment. Green algae can sense the intensity of light and swim towards light to photosynthesize.

Dr. Tang and colleagues spent more than three years studying this nanorobot successfully. Nanorobot has this new structure made up of two common low-cost semiconductor materials: silicon and titanium oxide. In the synthesis process, silicon and titanium oxide are formed into a nanowire and then arranged into a heterogeneous nanostructured structure.

Explain the applicability of this nanorobot, TS. Tang said: " This nanorobot is currently not able to cure any specific disease, but we are continuing to improve it so that later nanorobot generations can be more useful and biocompatible".