Mobile Microrobots for Active Therapeutic Delivery

Recent advances in the versatility and sophistication of design, fabrication, and control methods of mobile microrobots could have a transforming impact on future healthcare technologies. Self-propelled or remotely actuated, synthetic, or biohybrid microrobots can navigate to difficult-to-reach regions in the human body to deliver therapeutics for microscopically localized medical interventions. Here, recent progress in the design of microrobotic systems concerning therapeutic delivery of drugs, cells, and genetic materials is reported. This perspective prioritizes the design aspects of microrobots for medical cargo loading, navigation in biologically relevant environments, and controlled cargo release. In the final section, future prospects and a discussion on the critical shortcomings for the benchside-to-bedside translation of medical microrobots are provided.