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Team:HKU-HKBU/Project
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# A bacterial strain that has flagella and is a fast-swimmer. In terms of swimming, the strain must swim in a unidirectional movement without tumbling. The strain needs to express a protein (streptavidin in our design) at one pole on cell surface. This protein can bound very strongly to one side of a motor and hence attaches itself to the motor. | # A bacterial strain that has flagella and is a fast-swimmer. In terms of swimming, the strain must swim in a unidirectional movement without tumbling. The strain needs to express a protein (streptavidin in our design) at one pole on cell surface. This protein can bound very strongly to one side of a motor and hence attaches itself to the motor. | ||
# A micro-meter-size motor with one side coated by some material (biotin in our design) that can strongly interacted with the protein in the first module. | # A micro-meter-size motor with one side coated by some material (biotin in our design) that can strongly interacted with the protein in the first module. | ||
| - | # The | + | # The bacterial swimming speed can be regulated by specific reagents. |
The application of "Bactomotor" will be extremely valuable 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: | The application of "Bactomotor" will be extremely valuable 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: | ||
Revision as of 13:03, 21 October 2009
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 field.
In the design of our model, it is mainly divided into THREE modules:
- A bacterial strain that has flagella and is a fast-swimmer. In terms of swimming, the strain must swim in a unidirectional movement without tumbling. The strain needs to express a protein (streptavidin in our design) at one pole on cell surface. This protein can bound very strongly to one side of a motor and hence attaches itself to the motor.
- A micro-meter-size motor with one side coated by some material (biotin in our design) that can strongly interacted with the protein in the first module.
- The bacterial swimming speed can be regulated by specific reagents.
The application of "Bactomotor" will be extremely valuable 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 minimizing side effects.
- Removing of plaque from 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
Besides applications in medicine, the bio-motor can be used to generate electricity. It will provide promising alternative renewable energy sources to our increasing electricity-demanding world, especially to those developing countries. Nevertheless, these examples are only to act as some valuable stepping stones for us to pursuit further discoveries and to develop more sophisticated products in coming years.
