Researchers are using genetically engineered E. coli to power micromotors, with the swimming bacteria causing the motors to rotate in a similar fashion to a river rotating a watermill.

“Our design combines a high rotational speed with an enormous reduction in fluctuation when compared to previous attempts based on wild-type bacteria and flat structures,” says Roberto Di Leonardo, co-author of the new research. “We can produce large arrays of independently controlled rotors that use light as the ultimate energy source. These devices could serve one day as cheap and disposable actuators in microrobots for collecting and sorting individual cells inside miniaturized biomedical laboratories.”

(more…)

In a new study, researchers have developed a micromotor that can propel itself though the body to the stomach lining to deliver cargo.

While engineers have been developing micromotors for some time, it wasn’t until now that anyone has tested the device inside an animal. Researchers state that the results of this experiment show the potential of motorized particles to possibly improve the functions of nanoparticle drug carriers and imaging agents.

The micromotors were tested on mice to see the motor’s ability when delivering cargo to the stomach walls. Because the particles are jet-propelled, the researchers believed that they would be able to penetrate the layer of thick mucus that lines the stomach.

(more…)