Medical robots take fantastic voyage.(ROBOTICS)(Brief article)

R & D, April, 2007

More than four decades after the release of the sci-fi movie Fantastic Voyage, researchers at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada, have successfully navigated a wireless device inside an artery using a clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system. This breakthrough procedure may pave the way for minimally invasive and more accurate surgeries.

Under the leadership of Sylvain Martel, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Micro/Nanosystem Development, researchers have succeeded in guiding, in vivo and via computer control, a micro-device inside an artery, at a speed of 10 cm/sec.

"Injection and control of nanorobots inside the human body, which contains nearly 100,000 km of blood vessels, is a promising avenue that could enable interventional...