Robot can anchor at different positions within the gut.
The anchoring robot would be swallowed like a normal pill and move through the body until it reached the gut. Then a doctor, using a wireless control, would tell the robot when to expand its legs and anchor. It would be good not only for snapping images, but also potentially for biopsies, drug delivery, heat treatment, and other treatment applications.
While doctors have, for the past several years, used a camera pill that transmits images of the intestines, being able to control the movement of such a device would have many benefits, says Mark Schattner, a gastroenterologist at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, who was not involved in the work. "The number-one use would be biopsy," says Schattner. "The other would be control of bleeding--if you could cauterize or laser a source of bleeding, that would be [a] major therapeutic use." While the CMU robot is not yet ready for such uses, its ability to securely and safely anchor in the body is the first step in achieving more-advanced applications.
It is not quite nanotech, (let's call it microtech), but I am amazed at how our diagnostic tools keep getting smaller, more functional, and useful. Perhaps this type of bot could be rigged to zap intestinal cancers, among other things.
