Search Results (88)

The term bacterial biofilm refers to a complex community of microorganisms embedded within a self-produced matrix of extracellular polymeric substances. This structural organization creates an environment that, when present in an infectious context within a living organism, limits the effectiveness of conventional antibiotic therapy. Consequently, such conditions substantially promote the development of antibiotic resistance. The decline in the discovery of novel antibiotic agents, coupled with a concurrent increase in the prevalence of multidrug-resistant microorganisms, has intensified the search for alternative strategies to combat such infections. At the same time, advances in nanoscience have stimulated substantial research into the use of micro/nanorobots for the eradication of bacterial biofilms. These devices, engineered at the micro- to nanoscale, are capable of targeted intervention in otherwise inaccessible sites. However, the development of such “microscopic therapeutic agents” is still at an early stage. To date, the vast majority of available data has been derived from in vitro studies, while evidence regarding their feasibility, safety, and therapeutic effects in living organisms remains limited. This review discusses their antimicrobial mechanisms and critically evaluates the current evidence concerning their in vivo applications. Full article

Micro/nanorobotics is emerging as a promising biomedical technology because of its precision, minimal invasiveness, multifunctionality, and potential to mitigate systemic adverse effects. At these ultraminiaturized scales, unique physical constraints necessitate design principles and actuation strategies distinct from those of conventional robotic systems, making material choice, structural design, propulsion mechanisms, and fabrication methods central to overall performance. In this review, we examine recent trends in micro/nanorobot development, with particular emphasis on the advantages of employing hydrogels and the current technical limitations associated with their use. Magnetic, chemical, acoustic, optical, and biohybrid propulsion strategies are comparatively analyzed, together with the material requirements and biological compatibility associated with each approach. Representative applications in drug delivery, tissue regeneration, and cancer therapy are further discussed to highlight the broad medical potential of these systems. Finally, remaining challenges related to material limitations, actuation efficiency, biocompatibility, and manufacturing scalability are identified, and future directions toward clinical translation and practical deployment are outlined. Overall, this review provides an integrated perspective on how hydrogel properties, actuation physics, fabrication strategies, and translational considerations collectively shape the development of more adaptive, biocompatible, and clinically relevant microrobotic systems. Full article

Cancer continues to present a profound challenge due to high mortality and the inherent limitations of conventional treatments, including suboptimal targeting, systemic toxicity, and difficulty in overcoming physiological barriers. Micro/nanorobots (MNRs) offer a promising enhanced precision and efficacy in cancer therapy. This review systematically analyzes recent advancements in MNR applications, establishing a consistent framework that interlinks their diverse material compositions, propulsion strategies, and therapeutic functions. We critically compare various materials (inorganic, organic/polymeric, and biological/hybrid materials), elucidating their respective trade-offs in biocompatibility, biodegradability, and stimulus responsiveness. This paper further examines both internal (chemical and biological) and external (magnetic, light, and ultrasound) propulsion mechanisms, highlighting their strengths in overcoming biological barriers and enabling complex in vivo navigation, while also discussing their inherent limitations in control, fuel dependency, and tissue penetration. We then synthesize the therapeutic capabilities of MNRs across targeted drug delivery, phototherapy, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy, emphasizing common advantages like enhanced tumor specificity and reduced systemic side effects. A forward-looking perspective was also provided on the remaining challenges, particularly focusing on in vivo controllability, long-term biosafety, manufacturing scalability, and the significant hurdles in clinical translation. By offering a more critical and integrated analysis, this review underscores the immense potential of MNRs to revolutionize personalized precision cancer treatment, while candidly addressing the complex obstacles that must be surmounted for their successful clinical adoption. Full article

The field of nanoparticle-based biotechnology has undergone substantial advancement, characterized by progress in targeted drug delivery systems, the development of innovative diagnostic and imaging platforms, the expanded adoption of environmentally sustainable (“green”) synthesis approaches, and an increasing emphasis on the integration of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and nanorobotics. Conventional nanoparticle synthesis often involves toxic reducing agents; however, recent advances promote eco-friendly green synthesis methods utilizing biological systems such as bacteria, fungi, algae, yeast, plants, and actinomycetes. These biological approaches are safe, sustainable, cost-effective, and capable of producing highly stable Nanoparticles (NPs). The interaction of nanomaterials with biological systems is crucial for developing intracellular and subcellular drug delivery technologies with minimal toxicity, governed by nano–bio interface mechanisms such as cellular translocation, surface wrapping, embedding, and internal attachment. Key factors influencing NP behavior include morphology, size, surface area, surface charge, and ligand chemistry. Magnetic nanoparticles, particularly iron-based forms, exhibit unique superparamagnetic properties that are strongly influenced by particle size, as explained by the Néel relaxation mechanism, in which thermal energy induces flipping of magnetic moments. Nanoparticles demonstrate diverse modes of action, including antimicrobial activity, reactive oxygen species (ROS)-induced cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, and plant growth promotion. NP performance and biological effects are strongly dependent on their size, shape, dosage, and concentration. This critical review article aims to elucidate evolution, classification, preparation methods, and multifaceted applications of nanoparticles. Full article

The efficacy of traditional antimicrobial treatments has been largely compromised due to the high occurrence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens, therefore underlining the limitations of existing drug delivery mechanisms. Pathogens resist pharmacological treatment via different mechanisms, including efflux pump overexpression, biofilm formation, and enzymatic destruction. The application of nanorobotics or controllable nanoscale devices has gained considerable attention for overcoming shortcomings while connecting biomedical engineering, materials science, and microbiology. Despite advancements in nanomedicine, there is still no suitable nanorobotic system applicable against MDR pathogens. Previous studies highlighted device categories and materials but did not explain the detailed nanorobotic mobility, sensing, and programmability to counteract biological resistance. This review combines cross-disciplinary discoveries to design a mechanistic and translational model for nanorobotics effective in controlling infectious diseases while focusing on the advancements in nanorobotic technologies over the past six years (2020–2025), with emphasis on translational readiness, biosafety issues, scalability, regulation, and their mechanistic ability to overwhelm MDR complications. Databases from different publishers, including PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science, were used to select studies focusing on the potential of emerging nanorobotic therapeutic technologies, such as magnetic microrobots, catalytic nanoswimmers, and DNA origami nanodevices, and their application to bacterial biofilms and antibiotic drug delivery. Evidence from the literature shows that magnetically driven microrobots, catalytic nanoswimmers, and DNA origami structures can actively destroy biofilms, enhance antibiotic penetration, and perform site-specific antimicrobial administration. Nevertheless, most of these innovations remain in the preclinical or prototype stage, hindered by biosafety issues, immunological reactivity, poor routing precision, energy source optimization, and a lack of regulatory and ethical frameworks, which are major challenges for clinical translation. Full article

Breast cancer remains a leading cause of mortality among women worldwide, presenting significant treatment challenges due to its aggressive nature and lack of targeted therapies. Traditional treatments, including surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, have improved survival rates. However, limitations such as drug resistance and adverse side effects persist. Recent advancements in nanotechnology offer promising avenues for enhancing breast cancer treatment by improving drug delivery, increasing therapeutic efficacy, and minimizing systemic toxicity. This review explores breast cancer’s pathophysiology and molecular mechanisms, evaluates current diagnostic and therapeutic strategies, and discusses emerging innovations in nanotechnology and integrative medicine. Recent studies have demonstrated the efficacy of green nanotechnology in transforming Ayurvedic medicine into scientifically credible treatments. These integrative approaches not only enhance the therapeutic potential of traditional medicine but also offer a pathway to overcome challenges associated with conventional cancer treatments. The convergence of nanotechnology and traditional medical systems holds transformative potential in breast cancer therapy. By leveraging the unique properties of nanoparticles and nanorobotics, it is possible to develop more effective, personalized, and less toxic treatment modalities. Future research should optimize these integrative approaches, conduct rigorous clinical trials, and elucidate the underlying mechanisms to fully realize their potential in combating breast cancer. Full article

Magnetic nanoparticles, with their excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability, serve as ideal materials for constructing targeted drug delivery systems. Iron oxide (Fe₃O₄) nanoparticles, controllably prepared via methods such as solvothermal synthesis, can be combined with mesoporous silica to construct magnetically steerable nanorobots. Such robots enable efficient drug loading and precise delivery. To address challenges in the treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), including the significant side effects of systemic drugs and the low oral bioavailability and poor colonic targeting of novel food-derived drugs (e.g., capsaicin with anti-inflammatory activity), this study designed capsaicin-loaded iron oxide-mesoporous silica composite nanorobots (Cap-M@mSbots). Driven by a rotating gradient magnetic field of up to 80 mT, Cap-M@mSbots achieve large-scale emergent collective locomotion, with a maximum collective locomotion velocity reaching 180.7 μm/s, and are capable of long-distance movement overcoming millimeter-scale obstacles. This system can be actively propelled to colonic lesion sites under magnetic guidance, achieving targeted drug enrichment and sustained release, thereby offering a novel strategy for the targeted therapy of IBD. Full article

Microplastics have become a major environmental concern due to their resistance to degradation, wide distribution, and potential uptake by organisms. Conventional mitigation strategies often exhibit limitations in efficiency, reuse, and scalability, and may generate secondary pollutants. In this review, we highlight the application of magnetically controlled, sustainable nanorobots based on magnetic hybrid nanoparticles with different functional groups to enhance the removal efficiency of microplastics from the environment. By leveraging hydrophobic interactions, surface modifications, and tailored additives, these magnetic nanorobots provide a sustainable, eco-friendly approach to mitigating microplastic pollution and offer improved magnetic separation performance. Bioinspired and biohybrid magnetic nanorobots, based on green synthesis principles, carbon-based nanomaterials, biochar, nature-inspired swarm motion, and collective behavior, present further advancements that mimic biological systems to capture microplastics with high efficiency and recovery. Achieving removal efficiencies often exceeding 90% in minutes, and maintaining the efficiency after several cycles. The synergistic integration of magnetic separability with tailor-made surface functionalities underpins the effectiveness of these magnetic nanorobots, setting the stage for their future commercialization and widespread adoption in water remediation technologies. Full article

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and micro/nanorobotics is fundamentally reshaping biosensing by enabling autonomous, adaptive, and high-resolution biological analysis. These miniaturized robotic systems fabricated using advanced techniques such as photolithography, soft lithography, nanoimprinting, 3D printing, and self-assembly can navigate complex biological environments to perform targeted sensing, diagnostics, and therapeutic delivery. AI-driven algorithms, mainly those in machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL), act as the brains of the operation, allowing for sophisticated modeling, genuine real-time control, and complex signal interpretation. This review focuses recent advances in the design, fabrication, and functional integration of AI-enabled micro/nanorobots for biomedical sensing. Applications that demonstrate their potential range from quick point-of-care diagnostics and in vivo biosensing to next-generation organ-on-chip systems and truly personalized medicine. We also discuss key challenges in scalability, energy autonomy, data standardization, and closed-loop control. Collectively, these advancements are paving the way for intelligent, responsive, and clinically transformative biosensing systems. Full article

Numerical simulations of protein folding enable the design of protein-based nanomachines and nanorobots by predicting folded three-dimensional protein structures with high accuracy and revealing the protein conformation transitions during folding and unfolding. In the kinetostatic compliance method (KCM) for folding simulations, protein molecules are represented as ensembles of rigid nano-linkages connected by chemical bonds, and the folding process is driven by the kinetostatic influence of nonlinear interatomic force fields until the system converges to a free-energy minimum of the protein. Despite its strengths, the conventional KCM framework demands an excessive number of iterations to reach folded protein conformations, with each iteration requiring costly computations of interatomic force fields. To address these limitations, this work introduces a family of sign gradient descent (SGD) algorithms for predicting folded protein structures. Unlike the heuristic-based iterations of the conventional KCM framework, the proposed SGD algorithms rely on the sign of the free-energy gradient to guide the kinetostatic folding process. Owing to their faster and more robust convergence, the proposed SGD-based algorithms reduce the computational burden of interatomic force field evaluations required to reach folded conformations. Their effectiveness is demonstrated through numerical simulations of KCM-based folding of protein backbone chains. Full article

Methodological fusion of materials chemistry, which enables us to create materials, with nanotechnology, which enables us to control nanostructures, could enable us to create advanced functional materials with well controlled nanostructures. Positioned as a post-nanotechnology concept, nanoarchitectonics will enable this purpose. This review paper highlights the broad scope of applications of the new concept of nanoarchitectonics, selecting and discussing recent papers that contain the term ‘nanoarchitectonics’ in their titles. Topics include controls of dopant atoms in solid electrolytes, transforming the framework of carbon materials, single-atom catalysts, nanorobots and microrobots, functional nanoparticles, nanotubular materials, 2D-organic nanosheets and MXene nanosheets, nanosheet assemblies, nitrogen-doped carbon, nanoporous and mesoporous materials, nanozymes, polymeric materials, covalent organic frameworks, vesicle structures from synthetic polymers, chirality- and topology-controlled structures, chiral helices, Langmuir monolayers, LB films, LbL assembly, nanocellulose, DNA, peptides bacterial cell components, biomimetic nanoparticles, lipid membranes of protocells, organization of living cells, and the encapsulation of living cells with exogenous substances. Not limited to these examples selected in this review article, the concept of nanoarchitectonics is applicable to diverse materials systems. Nanoarchitectonics represents a conceptual framework for creating materials at all levels and can be likened to a method for everything in materials science. Developing technology that can universally create materials with unexpected functions could represent the final frontier of materials science. Nanoarchitectonics will play a significant part in achieving this final frontier in materials science. Full article

Although intracranial hypertension (ICH) has traditionally been framed as simply a numerical escalation of intracranial pressure (ICP) and usually dealt with in its clinical form and not in terms of its complex underlying pathophysiology, an emerging body of evidence indicates that ICH is not simply an elevated ICP process but a complex process of molecular dysregulation, glymphatic dysfunction, and neurovascular insufficiency. Our aim in this paper is to provide a complete synthesis of all the new thinking that is occurring in this space, primarily on the intersection of glymphatic dysfunction and cerebral vein physiology. The aspiration is to review how glymphatic dysfunction, largely secondary to aquaporin-4 (AQP4) dysfunction, can lead to delayed cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) clearance and thus the accumulation of extravascular fluid resulting in elevated ICP. A range of other factors such as oxidative stress, endothelin-1, and neuroinflammation seem to significantly impair cerebral autoregulation, making ICH challenging to manage. Combining recent studies, we intend to provide a revised conceptualization of ICH that recognizes the nuance and complexity of ICH that is understated by previous models. We wish to also address novel diagnostics aimed at better capturing the dynamic nature of ICH. Recent advances in non-invasive imaging (i.e., 4D flow MRI and dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI; DCE-MRI) allow for better visualization of dynamic changes to the glymphatic and cerebral blood flow (CBF) system. Finally, wearable ICP monitors and AI-assisted diagnostics will create opportunities for these continuous and real-time assessments, especially in limited resource settings. Our goal is to provide examples of opportunities that exist that might augment early recognition and improve personalized care while ensuring we realize practical challenges and limitations. We also consider what may be therapeutically possible now and in the future. Therapeutic opportunities discussed include CRISPR-based gene editing aimed at restoring AQP4 function, nano-robotics aimed at drug targeting, and bioelectronic devices purposed for ICP modulation. Certainly, these proposals are innovative in nature but will require ethically responsible confirmation of long-term safety and availability, particularly to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where the burdens of secondary ICH remain preeminent. Throughout the review, we will be restrained to a balanced pursuit of innovative ideas and ethical considerations to attain global health equity. It is not our intent to provide unequivocal answers, but instead to encourage informed discussions at the intersections of research, clinical practice, and the public health field. We hope this review may stimulate further discussion about ICH and highlight research opportunities to conduct translational research in modern neuroscience with real, approachable, and patient-centered care. Full article

Outer-membrane vesicles (OMVs), naturally secreted by Gram-negative bacteria, have gained recognition as a versatile platform for the development of next-generation vaccines. OMVs are essential contributors to bacterial pathogenesis, horizontal gene transfer, cellular communication, the maintenance of bacterial fitness, and quorum sensing. Their intrinsic immunogenicity, adjuvant properties, and scalability establish OMVs as potent tools for combating infectious diseases and cancer. Recent advancements in genetic engineering and biotechnology have further expanded the utility of OMVs, enabling the incorporation of multiple epitopes and antigens from diverse pathogens. These developments address critical challenges such as antigenic variability and co-infections, offering broader immune coverage and cost-effective solutions. This review explores the unique structural and immunological properties of OMVs, emphasizing their capacity to elicit robust immune responses. It critically examines established and emerging engineering strategies, including the genetic engineering of surface-displayed antigens, surface conjugation, glycoengineering, nanoparticle-based OMV engineering, hybrid OMVs, and in situ OMV production, among others. Furthermore, recent advancements in preclinical research on OMV-based vaccines, including synthetic OMVs, OMV-based nanorobots, and nanodiscs, as well as emerging isolation and purification methods, are discussed. Lastly, future directions are proposed, highlighting the potential integration of synthetic biology techniques to accelerate research on OMV engineering. Full article

An engineered molecular motor composed of an ATP-dependent kinesin-1 monomer and an ATP-independent diffusing microtubule-associated protein is proposed, and its dynamics are studied theoretically. It is shown that the engineered motor can move directionally on microtubules towards the plus end, bearing great potential for applications in therapeutics or nanorobotics. The engineered motor can have an unloaded velocity similar to the wild-type kinesin-1 dimer, can take a mechanical (either forward or backward) step by hydrolyzing an ATP molecule under any load, and can generate the maximum force that is about half of that generated by the wild-type kinesin-1 dimer. Full article

This research focuses on the development, design, implementation, and testing (with complete hardware and software integration) of a 6D Electromagnetic Actuation (EMA) system for the precise control and navigation of micro/nanorobots (MNRs) in high-viscosity fluids, addressing critical challenges in targeted drug delivery within complex biological environments, such as blood vessels. The primary objective is to overcome limitations in the actuation efficiency, trajectory stability, and accurate path-tracking of MNRs. The EMA system utilizes three controllable orthogonal pairs of Helmholtz coils to generate uniform magnetic fields, which magnetize and steer MNRs in 3D for orientation. Another three controllable orthogonal pairs of Helmholtz coils generate uniform magnetic fields for the precise 3D orientation and steering of MNRs. Additionally, three orthogonal pairs of Maxwell coils generate uniform magnetic field gradients, enabling efficient propulsion in dynamic 3D fluidic environments in real time. This hardware configuration is complemented by three high-resolution digital microscopes that provide real-time visual feedback, enable the dynamic tracking of MNRs, and facilitate an effective closed-loop control mechanism. The implemented closed-loop control technique aimed to enhance trajectory accuracy, minimize deviations, and ensure the stable movement of MNRs along predefined paths. The system’s functionality, operation, and performance were tested and verified through various experiments, focusing on hardware, software integration, and the control algorithm. The experimental results show the developed system’s ability to activate MNRs of different sizes (1 mm and 0.5 mm) along selected desired trajectories. Additionally, the EMA system can stably position the MNR at any point within the 3D fluidic environment, effectively counteracting gravitational forces while adhering to established safety standards for electromagnetic exposure to ensure biocompatibility and regulatory compliance. Full article