'Microswimmer could deliver drugs'
Updated on 04 December 2008
Scientists have devised a microscopic "swimming machine" that could deliver drugs inside the body by mimicking the wheel of a paddle-steamer.
The so-called 'microswimmer' is the first such device to move without using chemical propulsion or bending itself into different shapes.
The New Scientist reported that the machine, developed by experts at the University of Sheffield and the University of Barcelona, was built with two protein-coated magnetic beads of just one and three micrometres in diameter
Ramin Golestanian, a physicist at the University of Sheffield, told the December edition of the publication that the machine was "like a unicycle wheel" - with the smaller bead acting as the pedal.
The team now believes its technology can easily be shrunk to the nanoscale - at which it would be useful as a drug carrier.
"Microscale and nanoscale hydrodynamics are not all that different," Golestanian said.
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