Chinese scholars have made progress in the development of micro soft robots for targeted therapy


  

  Figure Schematic diagram of magnetic driven blood gel fiber robot for targeted treatment of deep intracranial tumorsUnder the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 62022087, 62125307, 52475308, U22A2064), Xu Tiantian, a researcher of the Chinese Academy of Sciences Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Wang Ben, associate professor of Shenzhen University, and Zhang Li, a professor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, carried out cross cooperation and made progress in the treatment of deep intracranial tumors with the proposed magnetic driven blood gel fiber robot. The research results, titled "Magnetically driven biohybrid blood hydrogel fibers for personalized intracranial tumor therapy under fluoroscopic tracking," were published in Nature Biomedical Engineering on May 1, 2025. Paper link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-025-01382-z .The clinical treatment of intracranial tumors located in deep brain or adjacent important functional areas faces certain challenges. Traditional surgical resection methods can cause irreversible nerve damage due to complex anatomical pathways, radiation therapy can lead to radiation necrosis of surrounding normal brain tissue, and chemotherapy is limited by the low permeability of the blood-brain barrier, making it difficult to achieve effective drug concentrations. Therefore, developing a non-invasive, precise, and efficient treatment method for intracranial tumors is of great significance.To solve the above problems, this research developed a magnetic driven biological hybrid blood hydrogel fiber robot (BBHF) with the patient's own tissue as the raw material, which can avoid the recognition and rejection reaction of the immune system, achieve multi-mode bionic movements such as swinging, crawling or rolling under the manipulation of the external programmable driving magnetic field, and achieve accurate targeted drug treatment of intracranial tumors through real-time tracking of X-ray imaging.Abandoning the traditional vascular delivery path, the research team designed and developed a magnetic driven blood gel fiber robot suitable for controllable multimodal movement in the cerebrospinal fluid environment based on its characteristics by using cerebrospinal fluid, a low-speed "natural channel". The core innovation of the robot lies in the triple "bionics": in the selection of materials, taking the fibrin in the patient's own blood as the raw material, the bionic gel technology is used to build a flexible carrier matching the mechanical properties of brain tissue, which is like putting a "cloak of invisibility" on the robot to completely avoid the risk of immune recognition; In terms of motion control, inspired by the movement of natural boundary insects, the blood gel fiber robot embedded with magnetic particles can achieve multimodal bionic movements such as swinging, rolling, crawling, etc. under the control of external magnetic fields, and combined with X-ray imaging real-time positioning technology, it can also achieve flexible navigation in the complex folds of the subarachnoid cavity; The drug release process adopts a magneto mechanical fracture mechanism. When the soft robot reaches the tumor lesion, a high-intensity alternating magnetic field can trigger its rapid fragmentation, which concentrates the drug and "spits it out", forming a local high drug concentration. This study has opened up a new path for precise and non-invasive treatment of intracranial tumors adjacent to deep brain or functional areas.