Team:HKU-HKBU/Application

=Applications=

Overview
Our version of 'Bactomotor' is only a preliminary one. But the idea of using the mechanical forces generated by microorganisms to do useful work is thrilling and will have great implications in many fields of future applications. Although forces generated by a single bacterium counts little, the concentration of forces generated by a population of bacteria can actually make a great difference. Motors powered by living organisms can have numerous advantages over the conventional electronic devices that are powered by batteries. The advantages are concluded as follows:


 * 1) The size of the motor can be reduced to a much smaller scale. The motor are available to many applications that involve microscale manipulation.
 * 2) The bacteria-powered motor is genetically manipulated.

The key is to develop a better interface between the microorganisms and the non-living device that can concentrate and forces and serves as a motion rectifier.

Clinical medicine and surgery
Bactomotor can play a role in the endarterectomy of small-caliber blood vessels beyond the reach of conventional cardiac catheters. Artherosclerosis of small-caliber blood vessels is the cause of idiopathic myocardial ischemia in middle-aged women. By injecting Bactomotor and aTc which induces Chez expression into the targeted vessel, Bactomotor clears the lipid obstruction by its physical movement.

In the future, Bactomotor raises the possibility of empowering drug delivery for cancer with the help of appropriate chemotaxis. It can also serve as the power source in microsurgery, where surgery is carried out at the microscopic level. Currently, surgeons have to resect a considerable amount of tissue margin when they resect a tumor, aiming at eradicating any microinvasion. This reduces the amount of viable tissue and is therefore indesirable. In the future, Bactomotor-powered microrobots can identify cancer cells one by one and eradicate them. In vivo imaging is another potential technology that make use of Bactomotor. Bactomotor-powered microrobots equipped with imaging electronics can circulate in the bloodstream and obtain microscopic details of the human tissue in vivo. In such applications, microrobots are expected to be injected into the patient to perform treatment or imaging at the cellular level. Further research related to the safety of such treatment should be done, for example, the robot must be non-replicating and non-toxic to the patient, possibly by attenuating the bacterial surface antigen and inhibiting the replication of the bacteria in vivo.

Green energy source
Scientists have been developing different renewable energy sources, such as wind power and solar power. Now, a possible new energy source is emerging: bacterial energy. Although Bactomotor is still at its infancy in terms of its scale, this can increase further if the efficiency of the motor is increased. The non-exhaustive replication of bacteria makes this energy source renewable and convenient. With sugar as its main power source, Bactomotor can make use of the existing and developing scientific endeavours aimed at producing sugar from certain crops, e.g. corn. One day, reactors containing bactomotors will be used in a household setting, serving as the power source for every family in the Global Village.