Updates
Four new preprints from the RBSL group !
Congrats to the team for a super productive stretch: check out our 4 new preprints from the lab on our publication site!
April 2023
Simone Schuerle named “30 people who
make Germany & the world a better place
Many people can build robots, but hardly anyone builds them as small as Simone Schürle-Finke, 37, from Ulm. At the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, the professor is developing microscopically small automatons that are inserted into the body and transport drugs. Schürle-Finke’s robots are covered with a metallic layer and are guided by magnets to the source of the disease. In this way, tumors, for example, can be targeted.
Jan 2023, Read more
Our paper is featured as Research Highlight in Nat Rev Bioeng!
Living Microrobots target cancer
Bacteria-based living micro-robots may enable targeted delivery of cancer therapeutic agents deep into tumours by exploiting the inherent onboard sensing and self-propulsion of bacteria. In addition, intrinsic or genetically engineered therapeutic functions can be implemented in bacteria — for example, to stimulate an immune response or express therapeutic molecules. However, the innate propulsion of bacteria alone may not be sufficient to ensure targeted delivery, and thus, strategies are needed to bring bacteria efficiently to their intended destinations. Now, writing in Science Robotics, Simone Schuerle and colleagues developed a biohybrid system made of magnetically responsive bacteria and liposomes that act together as controllable living microrobots for targeted drug delivery. Importantly, the researchers have established a magnetic torque-driven control scheme that increases the transport of the microrobots across the endothelial barrier.
Preprint Releases
Magnetically Controlled Cyclic Microscale Deformation of In Vitro Cancer Invasion Models
D.O. Asgeirsson, A. Mehta, N. Hesse, A. Scheeder, R. Ward, F. Li, M. G. Christiansen, A. De Micheli, E. S. Ildic, N. Aceto, S. Schuerle
Preprint, bioRxiv. April 2023
Magnetospirillum magneticum triggers apoptotic pathways in human breast cancer cells
Stefano Menghini, Matej Vizovisek, Jonathas Enders, and Simone Schuerle
Preprint, Research Squar. March 2023
