Nanorobots treat fatal pneumonia in mice

Nanotechnology engineers at the University of California, San Diego have created tiny robots, called microrobots, that can access the lungs, injecting drugs to treat life-threatening infections or cases of bacterial pneumonia.

The micro-robots safely eliminated pneumonia-causing bacteria and had a 100% success rate.

In contrast, mice that did not receive this treatment all died within three days of infection.

The results of the study were published September 22 in Nature Materials.

The microrobots are made from algae cells that have been enriched with antibiotic nanoparticles.

The algae enables locomotion, allowing the microrobots to swim and deliver antibiotics directly to more bacteria in the lungs.

The nanoparticles containing the antibiotics are made up of tiny biodegradable polymer spheres that are coated with the cell membranes of neutrophils, which are a type of white blood cell. What is special about these cell membranes is that they absorb and neutralize inflammatory molecules produced by bacteria and the body’s immune system. This gives the microrobots the ability to reduce harmful inflammation, which in turn makes them more effective at fighting lung infection.

The team used the microrobots to treat mice with an acute and potentially fatal form of pneumonia caused by the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

The researchers administered the microrobots to the lungs of the mice through a tube inserted into the trachea. The infections were completely gone after one week. All of the mice treated with the microrobots survived after 30 days, while the untreated mice died within three days.

Treatment with the microrobots was also more effective than intravenous antibiotics. The latter required a dose of antibiotic that was 3,000 times higher than that used in the microrobots to achieve the same effect. Specifically, a microrobot dose delivered 500 nanograms of antibiotic per mouse, while an intravenous injection delivered 1,644 milligrams of antibiotic per mouse.

The team’s approach is so effective because it puts the medicine exactly where it needs to go, rather than dispersing it into the rest of the body.

“These results show how targeted drug delivery combined with active movement of microalgae improves therapeutic efficacy,” the scientists said.

The team plans to do further research to understand exactly how the microrobots interact with the immune system. Next steps also include studies to validate the microrobot therapy and scale it up before testing it in larger animals and eventually humans.

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