When moviegoers took in the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, they were introduced to a world where humans could transform into microscopic surgeons to cure patients from the inside. More than 50 years later, this concept remains sci-fi, but the influence of robotics in fields like farming makes one wonder if medicine could be next.
One research institution that is advancing robotic medical implementation is the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT. In 2016, Professor Daniela Rus and a team of researchers created an ingestible robot that could be controlled magnetically outside of a patient.
The device is folded into an origami shape and encapsulated in ice to form a pill that can melt and unfold once it reaches the stomach. Researchers conducted trials using a pig stomach and a water/lemon juice mixture to simulate digestive acids.
One year later, the robot is not yet human-ready. “We’re still in the process of asking for vivo testing,” says Dr. Rus. “Typically, getting in vivo experiments done and getting approvals takes three years. Going from animals to humans might be another three years. There could be a minimum of six years to have a successful treatment for humans.”
Outside CSAIL, robotic medical applications are emerging around the world in the form of machine-assisted rehabilitation at the University of Utah and robotic ear surgery drills at the ARTORG Center in Switzerland.
“Given the state of MRI machines and the ability to look inside the body, using this way of working from the inside is an interesting topic,” says Dr. Rus. “Just think about where we were with medicine 25 years ago—who knows what the tools will be like in 20 years’ time.”