Human beings are known to be good at a ton of different things, and yet there is nothing we do better than growing on a rather consistent basis. This consistency, in particular, has allowed us to hit upon some huge milestones, with technology proving to be a major member of the said contingent. The reason why technology gets to enjoy such a high stature is inspired by its unique skill-set, which gave us a legitimate shot at all those possibilities that we could never imagined in an alternate reality. However, a closer look would reveal that the whole runner was also very much predicated upon how we used the stated skills in a real-world setting. The latter component was, in fact, what gave the creation a spectrum-wide presence, including a well-timed appearance on our healthcare block. Technology’s linkup with healthcare was so perfect in regards to the timing, as it came right when the sector was beginning to struggle against its own obsolete structure. Fortunately, this reality went through a massive overhaul under the new regime, but even after achieving so much, the medtech concept will just continue producing all the right goods. If anything, the same has only become more and more evident over the recent past, and a new development should set it up for another big leap.
The researching team at University of California, San Diego, has successfully developed a microrobot system, which is designed to treat bacterial pneumonia in a targeted, and consequentially, more effective manner. According to certain reports, the stated microrobots are actually made up from living algae cells that are equipped to swim through human biological fluids. This, in turn, creates a scenario where algae cells are able to navigate throughout the patient’s lungs and deliver therapeutic relief in those areas that are generally hard to access. Talk about the all-important algae cells a little bit, they are, in the stated context, studded with antibiotic-loaded polymer spheres, spheres that themselves bear a coating of cell membranes from neutrophils, which, like you can guess, provides the much needed anti-inflammatory effect. The entire construction and its individual parts have even backed up their efficacy across some practical tests. For instance, during one test, the researchers used their microrobot system to treat bacterial pneumonia in mice. Now, while the treated mice survived for at least another thirty days after receiving the treatment, the untreated group died in less than three days.
“With an IV injection, sometimes only a very small fraction of antibiotics will get into the lungs. That’s why many current antibiotic treatments for pneumonia don’t work as well as needed, leading to very high mortality rates in the sickest patients,” said Victor Nizet, a researcher involved in the study. “Based on these mouse data, we see that the microrobots could potentially improve antibiotic penetration to kill bacterial pathogens and save more patients’ lives.”
Given bacterial pneumonia’s tendency to appear when someone’s body might already be a little vulnerable, a development of this sort can really trigger a lasting impact on our healthcare prospects.
