Team:HKU-HKBU/overview

=Overview= Many of the non-invasive medications nowadays include uses of nanorobots which promise to an innovating technique for surgical instrumentation, diagnosis and drug delivery. However, many of them lack a reliable propulsion power source to operate and this critical crisis remains one of the biggest obstacles to the extensive use of nanorobots in medical treatment. Our "Bactomotor" aims to overcome these problems and bring a foundational and pioneering advancement.

In the design of our model, it is mainly divided into THREE modules:
 * 1) We need to select a strain of E. coli that possesses flagella as well as a fast-swimmer. In terms of swimming, the strain must swim in a unidirectional movement while non-tumbling.
 * 2) The speed of swimming can be regulated by specific reagents.
 * 3) The strain needs to express a protein called Streptavidin on its outer membrane. This protein can bound very strongly to the biotin-coated motor and hence attaching the Streptavidin-expressing E. coli to the motor.

The application of "Bactomotor" will be extremely valuable and immense when comes to nanorobots-assisted surgery or any medical treatment that requires nanorobots for body inspection as they provide a non-invasive method. A few examples are given below:
 * Selective drug delivery to target cells, increasing bioavailability and minimalizing systemic side effects.
 * Endarectomy of small arteries/arterioles/capillaries as treatment for atherosclerosis not reachable by catheters.
 * Lysis of blood clot in small arteries in brain as treatment for stroke

Outside medicine, another potential application of the bio-motor is to generate electricity, thus providing promising alternative renewable energy sources to our increasing electricity-demanding world, especially to those developing countries. Nevertheless, these fruitful findings hopes to act as some valuable stepping stone for us to develop further discoveries and even more sophisticated products in coming years.