Nanorobots on track to revolutionise disease treatment, making 1960s sci-fi movie a reality within a decade

The tiny robots are able to move within a patient’s body to treat tumours. A major challenge is how to make the tiny machines move against the blood flow. — SCMP

In the 1966 sci-fi movie Fantastic Voyage, a submarine and its crew are shrunk to the size of a microbe so they can be injected into the bloodstream of an injured scientist to repair a deadly blood clot in his brain.

For decades, real-life scientists have been fascinated by the technology depicted in the film. “Fantastic Voyage describes the future of nanorobots,” said Gao Wei, 34, a California Institute of Technology professor who co-developed a microrobotic system that can be guided towards specific parts of the digestive tract to treat tumours.