Canadian researchers at the Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal have coupled live, swimming bacteria to 150-nanometer beads to develop a self-propelling "nanobot" device steered through the body using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The bacteria can swim at 200 microns/second using flagella, and are just two microns in diameter--small enough to fit through the smallest blood vessels in the human body. The beads are treated with antibodies so that the bacteria would attach to them. Ultimately, the researchers plan to modify the beads so that they also carry cancer-killing drugs....just like in the 1966 Sci-Fi movie Fantastic Voyage.
Walter Derzko
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