Researchers 3D-Print Microscopic Robots That Could Someday Revolutionize Medicine

Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego used an innovative 3-D printing technology they developed to manufacture multipurpose fish-shaped microrobots — called microfish — that swim around efficiently in liquids, are chemically powered by hydrogen peroxide and magnetically controlled.
“We have developed an entirely new method to engineer nature-inspired microscopic swimmers that have complex geometric structures and are smaller than the width of a human hair. With this method, we can easily integrate different functions inside these tiny robotic swimmers for a broad spectrum of applications,” said the co-first author Wei Zhu at the Jacobs School of Engineering, UC San Diego.
These proof-of-concept synthetic microfish will inspire a new generation of ‘smart’ microrobots that have diverse capabilities such as detoxification, sensing and directed drug delivery, researchers said.