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Remote-control blob robots are set to eradicate bacterial biofilms | Because the robots have hydrogel bodies, they can ooze down into nooks and crannies that would otherwise get missed
It's never a good thing, when a bacterial biofilm forms on the surface of a medical implant. There could soon be a new way of eradicating such films, however, using tiny remote-control liquid-bodied robots.
Each robot is basically a small blob of cross-linked polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel, which is loaded up with neodymium-iron-boron magnetic particles along with two antibacterial agents: levofloxacin and indolicidin. In lab tests performed on an extracted pig digestive system, the technology was able to reduce the biofilm on a 3D-structured hernia mesh by 84%, plus it killed 87% of the bacteria on a metal binary stent. "In a mouse model with infected stents, complete weight recovery [of the mice] was observed within 12 days, with a 40% reduction in inflammation indicators compared to the control group," says CUHK's Prof. Zhang Li, who led the study.
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