Bacteria Harnessed As Micro-Robot Motors

ElectricBrian writes "Researchers have found a way to propel micro-capsules by attaching bacteria (S. marcescens, the type that makes your shower curtain moldy). Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University fixed the bacteria to the micro-capsules and then used chemicals to turn on and off their motion-producing flagella. Quoting: 'In the future, such hybrid swimming micro-robots could even be used to deliver drugs inside the liquid environments of the human body, such as the urinary tract, eyeball cavity, ear, and cerebrospinal fluid...'"

Comments

Mold in the eye of the beholder...

[flyingfsck]

Deliver drugs to the inside of the eye using mold? They don't think there would be a minor complication with getting rid of the mold afterwards?

Speedy little buggers

[nmb3000]

As the attached bacteria rotate their flagella, feeding on surrounding glucose, they push their bead forward at speeds of around 15 microns per second.

As interesting as this sounds, they sure aren't going anywhere very fast.

15 microns is about 0.00059 inches, so to travel one inch, it would take about 1,700 seconds, or a half an hour. IANAD, but it seems like you'd have better luck just letting the body's digestive and circulatory systems do the work for you.

As an added bonus you won't need to start spraying Lysol's Mold and Mildew Remover in your eyes, ears, and uh, other places.

Re:Speedy little buggers

[Anne Honime]

IANAMD, but in non life threatening conditions (infections in odd places like deep sinus), you generally suffer for months before any cure proves efficient, so what's a couple hours more ?

the eyes have it

[ianchaos]

There is one good reason to work on this type of medicine delivery device and that is the eyes. The interior of the eye has NO blood flow. Delivering medicine inside the eye has some very tricky problems.

1. It needs to be perfectly clear...and/or
2. After it is injected it then needs to be able to be completely absorbed through the interior of the eye so as to not leave any residue floating around.
3. You can't go injecting a large amount of fluid into an already full fluid sac. High pressure against the retina can tear the retina wall, and can rupture the incredibly fine veins that supply the retina with blood (causing large amounts of what are known as floaters).
4. How do you get the medicine to disperse evenly throughout the fluid in the eye. If it's heavy it sinks, equal to the eye fluid it generally stays where it is, or eventually sinks, or if it's lighter then the fluid in they eye it rises to the top. Perhaps severely shaking the patient after the injection would help...

Now if you had a colony of microbes which could be directed to different areas in the eye or simply ordered to disperse and deliver the drug when it comes into contact with "x" then you would have something.

Its covered

[KKlaus]

Don't worry. After the drug delivering mold has done its work we send in mold eating chinese needle snakes. But aren't those worse than the mold you say? Don't worry. After the mold's all gone we then send in gorillas to eat the snakes. What about the fact that you now have gorillas in your eyes? That's the real brilliance of the plan. Come winter, all the gorillas will freeze to death and the natural cleaning function of your eyes will flush them out after a short period, and you'll be fully cured! Another triumph of modern medicine.