Corkscrew-shaped robot swims through blood vessels to clear blockages

Laboratory tests amusement a tiny robot with a helical propeller inspired by bacteria tin aquatics done veins and present clot-busting drugs Technology 10 January 2022

By Alex Wilkins

Illustration of a humor clot and, inset, the helical microrobot

CHRISTOPH BURGSTEDT/Getty Images/Science Phot Library. Inset: Qianqian Wang, Xingzhou Du, Dongdong Jin, and Li Zhang

A corkscrew-shaped microrobot inspired by the tails of bacteria similar E. coli tin aquatics done humor vessels and assistance unblock clots.

Li Zhang astatine the Chinese University of Hong Kong and his colleagues inserted the robot into a synthetic vein filled with pig’s blood, and recovered it made humor clot-busting drugs enactment astir 5 times amended than the cause by itself.

“The helical operation is conscionable similar a propeller, truthful [the robot] tin present the cargo from constituent A to …