Chinese researchers have developed a small soft robot capable of controlling blood flow locally inside vessels, opening potential pathways for precision drug delivery, accelerated clot treatment, and cancer cell detection.
Named CiliaVine, the device was developed jointly by the Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the General Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army.
The robot is mounted on a medical guidewire and covered in fine hair-like structures. Magnetic fields drive those flexible cilia in different patterns, allowing the device to push material toward or away from vessel walls, or generate small vortices to mix surrounding fluids.
In laboratory tests, CiliaVine delivered a higher concentration of a test drug to vessel walls than conventional methods. On clot dissolution, vessels treated with the robot and the clot-busting drug tPA cleared in roughly 40 minutes, compared with around 70 minutes when tPA was used alone.
Researchers also tested its ability to detect circulating tumour cells by coating the device with antibodies. In blood samples taken from 23 liver cancer patients, the robot successfully captured cancer cells in every case.
Animal trials followed, with the device inserted via catheter into a main vein of rabbits carrying liver tumours. After 20 minutes of magnetically controlled operation, examinations of the surrounding vascular tissue showed no signs of inflammation or damage.
The research team says the technology could eventually support more targeted drug delivery, faster stroke and clot treatment, and early-stage cancer screening, though clinical application would require further testing beyond the laboratory and animal study phases.
