Daniel Levner, a bioengineer of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, and some colleagues of the Bar Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel, built nanobots, microscopic robots made from DNA (photo ©Michael Ströck). They were inserted into cockroaches to test their ability to perform logical operations that will allow to diagnose diseases or deliver drugs in an extremely targeted way.
These nanobots are also called origami robots because the DNA strands can be unfolded and folded. They can interact with each other in various combinations forming a sort of biological computer that can work within an organism with a remarkable precision.
The crucial possibility that researchers want to exploit is to use the binding properties of DNA. In practice, when the DNA meets a certain type of protein, it unravels into two complementary strands. The trick is to have the filaments unravel when they come into contact with specific molecules, such as a diseased cell, to release a substance wrapped inside them.
In the experiments with cockroaches, the nanobots were labeled with fluorescent markers in order to allow scientists to follow their path. In this way, it was also possible to analyze the results of different combinations of nanobots in releasing the substances they contain.
These nanobots have the potential to perform even complex operations combining the potential of a sufficient amount of them. It’s a little like putting together a certain amount of transistors on a silicon processor: the more transistors are available, the more powerful the processor. According to the scientists who began this research, the nanobots could reach a computing power comparable to that of the CPU 6502 of 8-bit home computers of the ’80s such as the Commodore 64 or the Atari 800.
The medical possibilities are significant and yet to be explored. For example, in the case of cancer treatment, it would be possible to use nanobots to deliver drugs directly to the diseased cells, maximizing their efficiency and minimizing their side effects.
The experiments with cockroaches are still at an early stage. To perform experiments on mammals, they must overcome the problem of their immune system, which would attack the nanobots. It will require changes to the nanobots to allow them to survive in the body of a mammal but Ido Bachelet, one of the researchers, is optimistic and believes that it will be possible to start the preliminary trilas in humans within five years.
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