Unravelling the potential of microbots in cancer therapy

Cancer is responsible for millions of deaths across the globe. Chemo- and radio-therapies have played key roles in cancer management. However, a huge research gap still exists in the form of aggravating adverse effects on healthy cells due to the off-target nature of these chemotherapies. Innovation in delivery technologies have commenced the era of nanomedicine and vaccines in the field of cancer therapy to achieve safer therapeutic approaches and improve patient compliance. However, uncontrolled bio-distribution, lack of target cell selectivity and inter-patient variability have brought the patient benefits to a stand-still. Microbots or micro-robots are micron-sized machineries which are engineered to be navigated across the systemic circulation to deliver the therapeutic agents deeper inside the tumor while, sparing the healthy cells. In addition to primary tumors, microbots also have the ability to target the circulating tumor cells thereby inhibiting secondary tumor development. In this endeavor, we dive deeper into the attributes of microbots to impart tumor cell specificity. An amalgamation of smart therapeutics, shape-morphing ability, navigation and how their unification could revolutionize the era of nanomedicine has been deliberated.