Micro/Nanorobot: A Promising Targeted Drug Delivery System

Micro/nanorobot, as a research field, has attracted interest in recent years. It has great potential in medical treatment, as it can be applied in targeted drug delivery, surgical operation, disease diagnosis, etc. Differently from traditional drug delivery, which relies on blood circulation to reac...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mengyi Hu (Author), Xuemei Ge (Author), Xuan Chen (Author), Wenwei Mao (Author), Xiuping Qian (Author), Wei-En Yuan (Author)
Format: Book
Published: MDPI AG, 2020-07-01T00:00:00Z.
Subjects:
Online Access:Connect to this object online.
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Micro/nanorobot, as a research field, has attracted interest in recent years. It has great potential in medical treatment, as it can be applied in targeted drug delivery, surgical operation, disease diagnosis, etc. Differently from traditional drug delivery, which relies on blood circulation to reach the target, the designed micro/nanorobots can move autonomously, which makes it possible to deliver drugs to the hard-to-reach areas. Micro/nanorobots were driven by exogenous power (magnetic fields, light energy, acoustic fields, electric fields, etc.) or endogenous power (chemical reaction energy). Cell-based micro/nanorobots and DNA origami without autonomous movement ability were also introduced in this article. Although micro/nanorobots have excellent prospects, the current research is mainly based on <i>in vitro</i> experiments; <i>in vivo</i> research is still in its infancy. Further biological experiments are required to verify <i>in vivo</i> drug delivery effects of micro/nanorobots. This paper mainly discusses the research status, challenges, and future development of micro/nanorobots.
Item Description:10.3390/pharmaceutics12070665
1999-4923