Roadmap for clinical translation of mobile microrobotics

Abstract

Medical microrobotics is an emerging field to revolutionize clinical applications in diagnostics and therapeutics of various diseases. On the other hand, the mobile microrobotics field has important obstacles to pass before clinical translation. This article focuses on these challenges and provides a roadmap of medical microrobots to enable their clinical use. From the concept of a "magic bullet" to the physicochemical interactions of microrobots in complex biological environments in medical applications, there are several translational steps to consider. Clinical translation of mobile microrobots is only possible with a close collaboration between clinical experts and microrobotics researchers to address the technical challenges in microfabrication, safety, and imaging. The clinical application potential can be materialized by designing microrobots that can solve the current main challenges, such as actuation limitations, material stability, and imaging constraints. The strengths and weaknesses of the current progress in the microrobotics field are discussed and a roadmap for their clinical applications in the near future is outlined. The clinical use of medical microrobots gets closer to reality with the rapidly growing biomedical research on them. However, the clinical translation of microrobots has several challenges and obstacles, including scalability, biocompatibility, and imaging. In this review article, a realistic roadmap for medical microrobots is conceptualized with the collaborative efforts of microrobot researchers and clinicians.