A mucus-wicking robotic tablet might provide a brand new method to ship meds.
The multivitamin-sized machine homes a motor and a cargo maintain for medicine, together with ones which might be usually given through injections or intravenously, similar to insulin and a few antibiotics. If individuals may take such medicine orally, they might doubtlessly keep away from each day pictures or a hospital keep, which might be “a huge game changer,” says MIT biomedical engineer Shriya Srinivasan.
But medicine that enter the physique through the mouth face a tricky journey. They encounter churning abdomen acid, raging digestive enzymes and sticky slicks of mucus within the intestine. Intestinal mucus “sort of acts like Jell-O,” Srinivasan says. The goo can entice drug particles, stopping them from coming into the bloodstream.
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The new machine, dubbed RoboCap, whisks away this drawback. The tablet makes use of floor grooves, studs and torpedo-inspired fins to clean away intestinal mucus like a miniature brush whirling inside a bottle. In experiments in pigs, RoboCap tunneled via mucus lining the partitions of the small gut, depositing insulin or the IV antibiotic vancomycin alongside the best way, Srinivasan and colleagues report September 28 in Science Robotics. After churning for about 35 minutes, the tablet continued its journey via the intestine and ultimately out of the physique.
RoboCap is the newest pill-like gadget made to be swallowed. In 2019, a few of the similar researchers who developed RoboCap debuted a unique machine — one which injects medicine by pricking the within of the abdomen (SN: 2/7/19). That pea-sized injector was not designed to work within the small gut, the place some medicine are most simply absorbed. The RoboCap might also be capable to ship bigger drug payloads, Srinivasan says.
A robotic tablet referred to as RoboCap churns via viscous mucus (stained purple) and intestinal juices (inexperienced) in a lab dish (proven sped up within the first clip on this video). In experiments in pigs, the tablet cleared mucus from the liner of the small gut to ship insulin or antibiotics.
