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Magnetic Microbots to Fight Cancer

Photo: Magnetic Microbes CREDIT anatomyblue Source IEEESpectrum.

from IEEE Spectrum 

By SYLVAIN MARTEL  /  OCTOBER 2012

ate one crisp October night in 2006, a hospital technician in Montreal slid the limp body of an anesthetized pig into the tube of a magnetic resonance imaging machine, or MRI. A catheter extended from a large blood vessel below its neck—a carotid artery. Into the catheter, a surgeon injected a steel bead slightly larger than the ball of a ballpoint pen.

In a room next door, my engineering graduate students and I held our breath. We were testing a program designed to manipulate the machine’s magnetic forces, which would guide the bead like a remote-controlled submarine. Or so we hoped. . . . Read Complete Report