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Helpings hands? This metal-and-polymer gripper, triggered chemically, could usher in a new era of minimally invasive surgery. Credit: Timothy Leong/JHU

The other day I happened upon this article and I couldn’t help but be impressed. Today minimally invasive surgery implies smaller incisions, but incisions nonetheless. How would you like minimally invasive to mean zero incisions?  If Dr. Gracias and his colleagues have their way that may soon become a reality.

From the MIT Technology Review:

The new technology is a step toward surgical tools that move more freely inside the human body. “We want to make mobile surgical tools,” says David Gracias, a biomolecular- and chemical-engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University, who led the development of the new gripper. “The ultimate goal is to have a machine that you can swallow, or [to] inject small structures that move and can do things [on their own].”

A gripper based on the current design could respond autonomously to chemical cues in the body. For example, it might react to the biochemicals released by infected tissue by closing around the tissue, so that pieces can be removed for analysis.

Gracias and his colleagues presented the microgripper at the American Chemical Society meeting earlier this month. To demonstrate the device, they used it to grasp and maneuver tiny beads and clumps of cells in a petri dish. They have also used the device in the laboratory to perform an in vitro biopsy on a cow’s bladder. “This is the first mobile micromachine that has been shown convincingly to do very useful things,” Gracias says. “And it does not require electric power for operation.”

In it’s current iteration the gripper is maneuvered by magnets thereby removing the need for any incisions. As a scientist I can’t help but wonder when this remarkable device can be made available for laboratory use. Being able to manipulate items at a microscopic level based on chemical features could be very useful. In the meantime I look forward to a future of incision free biopsies!