Currently, one of the most hopeful scientific disciplines in the fight against cancer is nanotechnology, that is, the manufacture of tiny devices programmed to locate and give tumor cells where it hurts the most . In short, it is about designing selective warfare tactics to replace current diagnostic techniques and chemotherapies, which massively bombard the enemy and cause heavy collateral casualties in healthy cells.
And, following the metaphor, one of the most delicate war scenarios in our body is the brain, where experts also plan to launch armies of nanorobots to detect and then eliminate tumors.
Among the ideas that are considered, that of Panagiotis Katrakazas, from the National Technical University of Athens (Greece) draws attention. Its objective is to inject nanospies deep into the gray mass , where magnetic resonance and other conventional imaging techniques cannot reach. As the researcher himself tells in the British magazine New Scientist , he and his team have created a computer simulation inspired by the coordinated movement of bats when they go in groups and use sounds – the so-called echolocation – to orient themselves and find their prey .
Nanobots would follow a similar pattern thanks to algorithms already created by other scholars of the behavior of flying mammals. According to the calculations of the Greek team, four nanobots would thus locate a small tumor in a few minutes . Katrakazas is confident that his technique, adapted to a device similar to classic EEGs, could begin to be tested in patients within a couple of years .
