The Encyclopedia of Medical Robotics
Description:... In Volume 2, Micro and Nano Robotics in Medicine, a brief historical overview of the field of medical nanorobotics as well as the state-of-the-art in the field is presented in the introductory chapter. It covers the various types of nanorobotic systems, their applications and future directions in this field. The volume is divided into three themes related to medical applications. The first theme describes the main challenges of microrobotic design for propulsion in vascular media. Such nanoscale robotic agents are envisioned to revolutionize medicine by enabling minimally invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. To be useful, nanorobots must be operated in complex biological fluids and tissues, which are often difficult to penetrate. In this section, a collection of four papers review the potential medical applications of motile nanorobots, catalytic-based propelling agents, biologically-inspired microrobots and nanoscale bacteria-enabled autonomous drug delivery systems. The second theme relates to the use of micro and nanorobots inside the body for drug-delivery and surgical applications. A collection of six chapters is presented in this segment. The first chapter reviews the different robot structures for three different types of surgery, namely laparoscopy, catheterization, and ophthalmic surgery. It highlights the progress of surgical microrobotics toward intracorporeally navigated mechanisms for ultra-minimally invasive interventions. Then, the design of different magnetic actuation platforms used in micro and nanorobotics are described. An overview of magnetic actuation-based control methods for microrobots, with eventually biomedical applications, is also covered in this segment. The third theme discusses the various nanomanipulation strategies that are currently used in biomedicine for cell characterization, injection, fusion and engineering. In-vitro (3D) cell culture has received increasing attention since it has been discovered to provide a better simulation environment of in-vivo cell growth. Nowadays, the rapid progress of robotic technology paves a new path for the highly controllable and flexible 3D cell assembly. One chapter in this segment discusses the applications of micro-nano robotic techniques for 3D cell culture using engineering approaches. Because cell fusion is important in numerous biological events and applications, such as tissue regeneration and cell reprogramming, a chapter on robotic-tweezers cell manipulation system to achieve precise laser-induced cell fusion using optical trapping has been included in this volume. Finally, the segment ends with a chapter on the use of novel MEMS-based characterization of micro-scale tissues instead of mechanical characterization for cell lines studies.
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