Nano robots made of bacteria will precisely attack cancer cells instead of the current and comprehensive chemotherapy

This is according to a study by researchers at the Montreal University of Technology 

The side effects of chemotherapy - from pain, through hair loss to permanent damage to whole organs in the body are a result of the fact that the drugs kill healthy cells along with the cancerous ones. A dose of toxic chemotherapy reaches everywhere in the body. However, tiny new nanobots could eventually be used to develop drugs that fight cancer only at the tumor sites.

"It is possible to reduce the dose, minimize the systemic toxicity for the patient, and increase the therapeutic effect of any type of medicinal substance," says Sylvain Martel, director of the nanorobotics laboratory at the Polytechnic of Montreal, one of the researchers working on the new technology.

Currently, the anti-cancer drugs are passively swept through the body, and only 2-1% of their content actually reaches the tumor. Most of the treatment is wasted and even worse, most of it ends up killing healthy cells. Cancer treatment is more painful and more expensive, because the patients are expected to end up staying in the hospital for a long time due to side effects.

The new system uses bacteria (Magnetococcus marinus strain MC-1) that are naturally attracted to areas with low oxygen concentration such as the parts of the tumor that are the most difficult to treat today. Because right now the most difficult to treat. The bacteria are guided by a magnetic field. "In the natural environment, these bacteria synthesize a chain of particles like the needle of a microscopic compass," says Martel.

In the laboratory, the researchers used a weak magnetic field to guide the bacteria towards the tumor. Once there, they begin using their natural navigation system to locate low-oxygen areas in parts of the tumor that have often been missed by traditional treatments, allowing that tumor to spread again throughout the body months or years later.

Within half an hour the bacteria die and release the medicine exactly where it is needed. The bacteria may penetrate deep into tumors because they are naturally strong swimmers. "The best Olympic swimmers can swim one body length per second," Martel says. "These manage to swim a distance of 200 and even 300 times their body length per second. They move quickly, with enormous pressures and they move deeply."

The diameter of the bacteria is about two microns, the order of magnitude of the holes in the blood vessels in the tumor. All the researchers had to do was load them with the drug and release the bacteria to take care of everything else - such as power and navigation, on their own.

While laboratories and even commercial companies are working on developing artificial nanobots that will deliver the drugs to their exact destination in a similar way, the bacteria are able to do a better job than the best nanotechnology to date. "Nanotechnology is not as efficient as billions of years of evolution," he says. "There are some advances, but the power source, the sensors, the embedded computer and more are missing."

The cancer treatment using the bacteria work successfully in mice; One of the next steps will be to prove that it is safe for use in humans.

for scientific research

More of the topic in Hayadan:

• Launch the nano-robots
• The robot that will fix me - from Dr.Roey Tsezana's book "The Guide to the Future"