Normally in the case of delivery system of targeted drug treatments, the drugs are given directly to the identified tumor cells by the bionanorobots. This move is meant to minimize the negative side effects while at the same time improve the quality of life of the affected patient following the treatment (Cavalcinti et al., 2008). Also, the drug dose that gets to the tumor cells can be easily controlled and increased following the minimized risks of the side effects that are harmful.
Following the differences in the range of scale and in material, the control techniques and the design used in robot pills are distinctly different compare to those of macro robots. The actual environment that surrounds the robot pills within the body of a human being is characterized by viscosity in which different forces such as adhesion and viscous forces play a crucial role.
The possible use of robot pills for cancer treatment drug delivery has several advantages over the existing radiation and chemotherapy techniques. In cases where chemotherapy drugs are injected, such drugs travel all over the body as they target cells that are growing first like cancer cells and this includes even healthy cells that are also growing first. This has been observed to result in degenerative health effects like damage to the heart and digestive tract in addition to side effects that are not favorable like hair loss (Cavalcinti et al., 2008). The damaging side effects action limits the dose of the drug that has been administered and this reduces the drug dose reaching the tumor cells.
Reduces the Adverse Chemotherapy Effects
One of the conventional chemotherapy limitations is the toxic effects it has on normal cells following the action of chemotherapeutic agents that limit the drug dose. However this limitation has been addressed by the development of targeted therapy and the improvement of robot pills technology related to selectivity treatment (Yamaan and Vyas, 2014). The development of robot pills that that can detect cancer cells automatically and react by releasing treatment agents at the cancerous cells sites has been developed successfully.
This kind of robot cells can be developed to respond to various cell surface receptors and the payload it releases when they are activated can be adjusted when necessary. This kind of robot pills has been developed with the use of DNA strands that have been engineered to fold into a tertiary structure that is desired. When it binds the identified target, the DNA conformation of the robot pills goes through a structural reconfiguration and changes to an open state from a closed state releasing the therapy that had been stored (Ceceri, 2015).
Advantage
With the introduction of the robot pills, it is possible to understand further the complexity of the brain and body of human beings. This development plays a crucial role in helping to conduct noninvasive and painless surgeries. This means that even the surgeries that in the past appeared to be the most complicated can be done with ease. Following their microscopic features, the robot pills can easily surf through the cells in the brain generating all the related information that is needed for further studies. The main advantage of robot pills is that they are so small to be seen using naked eyes and this means that they can be easily injected in the body. In future, it will be possible to use a single shot to cure diseases (Lenaghan et al., 2013).
References
Cavalcanti A, Shirinzadeh B, Kretly LC. (2008). Medical nanorobotics for diabetes control. Nanomed Nanotech Bio Med. 4:127–138
Ceceri, K. (2015). Making Simple Robots: Exploring Cutting-Edge Robotics with Everyday
Stuff. In K. Ceceri. Maker Media, Inc., .
Lenaghan SC, Wang Y, Xi N, Fukuda T, Tarn T, Hamel WR, Zhang M. (2013). Grand challenges in bioengineered nanorobotics for cancer therapy. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 60:667–67
Yamaan S., and Vyas, D., (2014). Nanorobotic Applications in Medicine: Current Proposals and Designs. Am J Robot Surg. 1(1): 4–11
