California start-up sends tiny robots on voyage into brains

Sending small robots deep within the human skull to treat brain diseases has long been science fiction, but according to a California start-up, it could soon become reality.

Bionaut Labs expects to begin human clinical trials for its tiny injectable robots, which can be carefully steered through the brain using magnets, in within two years.

“The idea of the micro robot came about way before I was born,” said co-founder and CEO Michael Shpigelmacher.

“One of the most famous examples is a book by Isaac Asimov and a film called ‘Fantastic Voyage,’ where a crew of scientists goes inside a miniaturized spaceship into the brain, to treat a blood clot.”

Just as cellphones now contain extremely powerful components that are smaller than a grain of rice, the tech behind micro-robots “that used to be science fiction in the 1950s and 60s” is now “science fact,” said Shpigelmacher.

“We want to take that old idea and turn it into reality,” the 53-year-old scientist told AFP during a tour of his company’s Los Angeles research and development center.

Working with Germany’s prestigious Max Planck research institutes, Bionaut Labs settled on using magnetic energy to propel the robots — rather than optical or ultrasonic techniques — because it does not harm the human body.

Magnetic coils placed outside the patient’s skull are linked up to a computer that can remotely and delicately maneuver the micro-robot into the affected part of the brain, before removing it via the same route.

The entire apparatus is easily transportable, unlike an MRI, and uses 10 to 100 times less electricity.

In a simulation watched by AFP, the robot — a metal cylinder just a few millimeters long, in the shape of a tiny bullet — slowly follows a pre-programed trajectory through a gel-filled container, which emulates the density of the human brain.