Recently, a groundbreaking scientific research achievement has been announced with great fanfare: the world's first magnetically controlled blood gel fiber robot has been successfully developed, bringing a revolutionary solution to the treatment of intracranial tumors. This innovative achievement was jointly accomplished by a collaborative team from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen University, and the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The relevant research results have been published in the internationally renowned journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Intracranial tumors, especially those located in deep brain regions or adjacent to important functional areas, have long been a tough nut to crack in clinical treatment. Traditional surgery faces complex anatomical paths and is highly likely to cause irreversible nerve damage; radiotherapy may lead to the necrosis of normal brain cells; chemotherapy, hindered by the blood-brain barrier, struggles to reach effective drug concentrations. Therefore, non-invasive, precise, and efficient treatment regimens have become an urgent challenge to overcome in the medical field.
To address this predicament, the collaborative team developed a magnetically controlled blood gel fiber robot based on the patient's own blood. The robot is constructed from fibrin in the patient's blood using bionic gelation technology, which is highly compatible with brain tissue structures, significantly reducing the risk of immune rejection. The team implanted magnetic particles inside the robot, endowing it with various bionic movement modes such as swinging, rolling, and crawling, enabling it to move freely in complex brain regions like the subarachnoid space. Combined with X-ray imaging technology, it realizes real-time tracking and precise positioning during the treatment process.
In terms of the transportation path, the team took a different approach, abandoning traditional vascular delivery and using cerebrospinal fluid as the "natural waterway" for the robot's transportation. With the multi-modal magnetically controlled movement strategy, the robot can accurately navigate through brain structures and reach the tumor focus. After arriving at the target, under the action of a high-intensity alternating magnetic field, the robot releases the carried chemotherapy drugs through a unique mechanism of magnetically induced mechanical fracture, locally increasing the drug concentration, enhancing the therapeutic effect while reducing side effects, thus providing a non-invasive, precise, and efficient new treatment 方案 for deep intracranial and adjacent tumors.
This innovative magnetically controlled blood gel fiber robot system integrates cutting-edge technologies from multiple disciplines such as biomaterials and intelligent micro-robots, demonstrating the collaborative innovation capabilities of Hong Kong and Shenzhen in the fields of biomaterials, soft robots, and medical imaging. It opens up a new path for precise and non-invasive treatment of intracranial tumors. In the future, with the continuous optimization and improvement of the technology, the magnetically controlled blood gel fiber robot is expected to bring new hope to more patients with intracranial tumors.