The research, which was published in Advanced Materials, has the potential to improve infertility treatments, for example, and enable the highly localized release of drugs and cells.

How the robotic catheters work

Minimally invasive therapies require precise navigation through complex and delicate anatomical pathways, necessitating medical tools that are small, flexible and highly maneuverable. This study presents a high-yield fabrication method for producing magnetic miniature robotic catheters, enabling them to operate across diverse microenvironments for precision medicine.

“The catheter is manufactured using a scalable method that incorporates magnetic particles into elastomeric material matrices,” explains Dr. Medina-Sánchez, leader of the Nanobiosystems group at nanoGUNE.