Medical micro- and nanomotors in the body

Huaan Li; Fei Peng; Xiaohui Yan; Chun Mao; Xing Ma; Daniela A Wilson; Qiang He; Yingfeng Tu

doi:10.1016/j.apsb.2022.10.010

Medical micro- and nanomotors in the body

Acta Pharm Sin B. 2023 Feb;13(2):517-541. doi: 10.1016/j.apsb.2022.10.010. Epub 2022 Oct 13.

Authors

Huaan Li^{1

2}, Fei Peng³, Xiaohui Yan⁴, Chun Mao⁵, Xing Ma⁶, Daniela A Wilson⁷, Qiang He⁸, Yingfeng Tu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacy, Zhujiang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510280, China.
² School of Pharmaceutical Science, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of New Drug Screening, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou 510515, China.
³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510275, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Molecular Vaccinology and Molecular Diagnostics & Centre for Molecular Imaging and Translational Medicine, School of Public Health, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China.
⁵ National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Biomedical Functional Materials, School of Chemistry and Materials Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, China.
⁶ Sauvage Laboratory for Smart Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen), Shenzhen 518055, China.
⁷ Institute for Molecules and Materials, Radboud University, Nijmegen, 6525 AJ, the Netherlands.
⁸ Key Laboratory of Microsystems and Microstructures Manufacturing (Ministry of Education), School of Medicine and Health, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, China.

Abstract

Attributed to the miniaturized body size and active mobility, micro- and nanomotors (MNMs) have demonstrated tremendous potential for medical applications. However, from bench to bedside, massive efforts are needed to address critical issues, such as cost-effective fabrication, on-demand integration of multiple functions, biocompatibility, biodegradability, controlled propulsion and in vivo navigation. Herein, we summarize the advances of biomedical MNMs reported in the past two decades, with particular emphasis on the design, fabrication, propulsion, navigation, and the abilities of biological barriers penetration, biosensing, diagnosis, minimally invasive surgery and targeted cargo delivery. Future perspectives and challenges are discussed as well. This review can lay the foundation for the future direction of medical MNMs, pushing one step forward on the road to achieving practical theranostics using MNMs.

Keywords: Biological barrier penetration; Biomedical applications; Biosensing; Controlled propulsion; Function integration; In vivo navigation; Micro- and nanomotors; Minimally invasive microsurgery.

Publication types

Review