On May 1, 2025, a research team composed of Professor Xu Tiantian of Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Associate Professor Wang Ben of Shenzhen University, and Professor Zhang Li of Chinese University of Hong Kong published a blockbuster research result in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering - the world's first magnetically controlled blood gel fiber robot. This innovative breakthrough opens up a new path for the precise and non-invasive treatment of tumors in the deep intracranial area and adjacent to the functional area, and is expected to completely change the status quo of brain disease treatment, which is of epoch-making significance.
1. Technical Principles and Innovation Highlights
*Core material and biocompatibility: The robot extracts fibrin from the patient's blood as a raw material, and is built through biomimetic gelation technology, which is highly matched with the tissue structure in the brain. This customized design based on the patient's own blood allows the robot to evade immune recognition, significantly reducing the risk of immune rejection, greatly improving biocompatibility compared to medical devices made of traditional foreign materials, and providing the possibility of multiple treatments.
*Magnetron drive and flexible movement: The researchers added magnetic particles inside the robot to enable it to achieve a variety of bionic motion modes such as swinging, rolling, and crawling under the control of an external programmable magnetic field. In complex brain regions such as the subarachnoid space, the robot can move flexibly like a nematode in a narrow space smaller than its own diameter, and the ultra-flexible hydrogel matrix is both softer than the intestine and more flexible than cartilage, and will not damage the fragile brain tissue at all, successfully solving the problem that traditional brain therapy devices are difficult to accurately navigate in the complex sulcal gyrus and are prone to damage nerve tissue.
*Precise positioning and drug delivery: Combined with X-ray imaging technology, the treatment process can be tracked and accurately located, and researchers can accurately navigate the robot to the tumor area to achieve targeted drug delivery. This precision not only improves the treatment effect, but also avoids the damage to normal brain tissue caused by traditional chemotherapy and reduces systemic toxicity and side effects.
*Intelligent drug release mechanism: The researchers innovatively proposed a high-frequency alternating magnetic field to induce a drug release mechanism for the robotic fracture and fragmentation of blood gel fibers. After reaching the target area, the robot can trigger its dynamic splitting drug release by applying a high-intensity rotating magnetic field, and by accurately adjusting the magnetic field frequency parameters, it can realize the gradient dissociation from millimeter-level to micron-level fragments, so as to dynamically control the drug release rate, providing a high-temporal and spatial precision control means for local chemotherapy for tumors, and avoiding the biological toxicity of traditional chemical triggers.
Figure: The Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a magnetically controlled blood gel fiber robot to accurately combat brain tumors
2. Preclinical research and experimental results
The researchers constructed a glioma model in 18 miniature pigs and divided the experiments into three groups: a blank control group, a sham operation group (implanted with unmedicated BBHF), and a treatment group (doxorubicin-loaded BBHF). The results showed that 26 days after surgery, the tumor growth of the BBHF treatment group was inhibited, which was 4 times smaller than that of the control group, and the number of live pig blood cells and biochemical marker levels in the BBHF treatment group remained at normal levels with little fluctuation, which further verified the good biocompatibility and treatment effect of the robot.
3. Significance and application prospects
* Overcoming the treatment problems of intracranial tumors: traditional surgery to remove tumors deep within the skull or adjacent to important functional areas has complex anatomical pathways and is easy to cause irreversible nerve damage; Radiation therapy may cause necrosis of normal brain cells; Chemotherapy is also limited by the low permeability of the blood-brain barrier, making it difficult to achieve effective drug concentrations. The emergence of magnetically controlled blood gel fiber robots provides a practical solution to solve these clinical problems, and is expected to improve the survival rate and quality of life of patients with intracranial tumors.
*Expand medical application scenarios: In addition to glioma treatment, this technology can also be extended to complex medical scenarios such as boundary invasion therapy and multi-lesion relay drug delivery for glioma in the future, bringing new hope for the precision treatment of brain diseases. Its intelligent drug release strategy based on physical field response also provides new ideas for local drug treatment in other fields, such as precision treatment of cardiovascular diseases and ophthalmic diseases.
*Promote the development of medical robots: The successful research and development of magnetically controlled blood gel fiber robots marks a new stage in the field of medical robots. It not only enriches the types and functions of medical robots, but also lays the foundation for the intelligent and precise development of medical robots in the future, and inspires researchers to explore more innovative medical robot technologies and applications.
4. Challenges and prospects
*Technical optimization and improvement: Although the robot has shown good performance in experiments, it is still necessary to further optimize the technical parameters to improve the stability and reliability of the robot in practical clinical applications. For example, magnetic field strength and frequency need to be more precisely controlled for more precise drug release; Further improve the manufacturing process of the robot to increase production efficiency and reduce costs.
*Clinical trials and regulatory approvals: From laboratory research to clinical application, it also needs to go through a large number of clinical trials to verify its safety and efficacy. At the same time, there is a stringent regulatory approval process to ensure that the technology can be safely and effectively applied to human patients. This requires close cooperation and joint efforts of the scientific research team, medical institutions, regulatory authorities and other parties.
*Multidisciplinary integration and talent training: The research and development of this technology involves multiple disciplines such as biomedical engineering, materials science, clinical medicine, physics, etc., and the future development also requires deep interdisciplinary integration and collaboration. In addition, it is also necessary to cultivate a group of professionals with interdisciplinary knowledge and skills to provide talent support for the further development and application of magnetically controlled blood gel fiber robots.
5. Conclusion
The world's first magnetically controlled blood gel fiber robot developed by the Chinese team is undoubtedly a major breakthrough in the field of medical technology. With its unique technical advantages and innovative ideas, it has brought a new dawn to the precision treatment of brain diseases such as intracranial tumors. Although there are still some challenges on the road to clinical application, with the continuous progress and improvement of technology, as well as the joint efforts of all parties, we have reason to believe that the magnetically controlled blood gel fiber robot will play an increasingly important role in the future medical field and make greater contributions to human health and well-being.
