Tiny robots with a big impact: microrobots for single-cell handling
advancedsciencenews.com
Tiny robots with a big impact: microrobots for single-cell handling
1–10 of 12 posts
Re: Tiny robots with a big impact: microrobots for single-cell handling
#2Staggering how close we're getting to this future: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwBm8fyLAsQ
Re: Tiny robots with a big impact: microrobots for single-cell handling
#3We are the Borg. Resistance is futile.
Re: Tiny robots with a big impact: microrobots for single-cell handling
#4Nice tech. This is the kind of innovation that will get commercial attention and may come out in the next few years as a multimillion dollar product sold to biopharma.
The current microfluidics and optical tweezer systems are slow and cummbersome and not very efficient yet already costing millions. This will probably double the price...
Re: Tiny robots with a big impact: microrobots for single-cell handling
#5This is crazy: my initial thought was that the first figure was some kind of diagram, but it is a microscopy photo of the actual physical system they have built!
The "micro-robots" are constructed by two-photon polymerization and actuated by laser tweezers grabbing onto "handholds". This avoids the laser heating up the biological specimens.
Note: two-photon polymerization is not not the same as what resin 3D printers use.
Paper: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adma.202401...
Re: Tiny robots with a big impact: microrobots for single-cell handling
#6[deleted]
Re: Tiny robots with a big impact: microrobots for single-cell handling
#7another alternative to optical tweezers are electrophoresis based microfluidics systems, especially for applications which require better thermal properties. You can sort, hold and rotate individual cells. As i left this field more than 10 years ago and this is not mentioned as main alternative i assume the method did not gain wide adoption however…
Re: Tiny robots with a big impact: microrobots for single-cell handling
#8First time I hear of this tech
Re: Tiny robots with a big impact: microrobots for single-cell handling
#9I think it's worth pointing out that this (and all micro robots I know of) are not actual robots as you might think of them, more of a tiny hand for a large robot that consists of laser (or sometimes magentic) control modules with computers, displays, human in the loop, etc.
Re: Tiny robots with a big impact: microrobots for single-cell handling
#10Reminds me of this episode of The Outer Limits https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0667978/
> A desperate dying man injects himself with experimental nanobots that can supposedly cure anything. It works, but then his body starts to hideously mutate. He asks his soon-to-be brother-in-law, who invented the nanobots, for help.