Description du projet
Des microrobots d’inspiration cellulaire
Les microrobots présentent un immense potentiel d’utilisation pour les procédures médicales non invasives et à des fins d’administration de médicaments. Toutefois, leurs fonctionnalités limitées et leur incapacité à se déplacer de manière efficace dans les fluides corporels et les tissus freinent leurs applications. Pour surmonter ces limites, le projet CELLOIDS, financé par l’UE, propose de développer des microrobots innovants inspirés par les cellules immunitaires qui se déplacent naturellement à travers les tissus corporels en altérant leur forme. Ces microrobots d’inspiration cellulaire, ou «celloïdes», contiendront des particules auto-propulsées qui leur permettront de naviguer de façon autonome dans les environnements de tissus mous. Les applications des celloïdes iront de l’administration ciblée de médicaments à l’étude de la migration des cellules immunitaires et cancéreuses.
Objectif
Microscale robotic devices, or microrobots, could someday enable revolutionary non-invasive medical procedures. However, fundamental limitations still hinder the realisation of this vision. Current microrobots have very limited functionalities: they strongly rely on wireless operation by external fields, which impedes the execution of sophisticated movements and tasks. As a consequence, despite their intended medical use, microrobots cannot move effectively in bodily fluids and tissues. This project addresses exactly this challenge: realising self-contained microrobots that autonomously move in complex 3D biological environments (such as soft body tissues).
Our sources of inspiration are biological cells that naturally move through body tissues, such as immune cells. These cells move by continuously changing their shape, a strategy known as ‘amoeboid movement’. Such shape changes are powered by the self-organized flows and stresses of their intracellular filaments and motor proteins. Analogously, we will realise microrobots that each consist of a swarm of active particles: each microrobot will have a liquid body containing self-propelled particles and different sensitive particles; moreover, the particles swarm will be engineered to exhibit desired collective behaviours. These cell-inspired particle-based microrobots, or celloids, will spontaneously adapt their morphology, generate large body-shape changes, sense environmental cues and control signals, and autonomously navigate soft tissue-like environments.
This project will establish a radically new method to design microrobots, and will result in microrobots capable of autonomous navigation of body tissues. The celloids will also constitute a robophysical model for studying the migration of immune and cancer cells, and will enable a number of revolutionary medical procedures, including long-term monitoring and non-invasive interventions in delicate organs (e.g. brain).
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-STG - Starting GrantInstitution d’accueil
56127 Pisa
Italie