Targeted Vibration-Induced Necrosis in Cancer Cells using Paramagnetic Microrobots

Abstract

Therapeutic delivery of anti-cancer drugs is a major goal of modern medicine. In particular, microrobots (MRs) have recently been studied for their ability to navigate difficult-to-reach regions in the human body to deliver therapeutics for microscopically localized interventions. However, the control of individual and swarms of MRs to precisely target localized cellular regions remains a significant challenge, preventing their applications as delivery systems in cancer research. In this study, magnetic MRs were used to target cancer cells and create localized magnetic oscillations which resulted in magnetolysis of cancer cells. The magnetic MRs were selectively steered towards Hepatocarcinoma cells (HepG2 cells) using our custom-built magnetic controller under a rotating magnetic field at different frequencies. After internalization of the microrobots by cancer cells, magnetic oscillation of varying dosages was applied to disrupt the internal structure of cancer cells which leads to subsequent cell death.