What once sounded like a work of fiction is now becoming a reality thanks to scientific advancements: DNA nanorobots have successfully killed cancerous tumours in mice in lab trials.
An article in Nature Biotechnology explains how the DNA nanorobots are able to act as delivery vehicles of drugs to cut off the blood supply to cancerous tumours.
The DNA robots can inject the tumours with drugs that kill them off and have successfully done so in lab mice, effectively killing their cancer.
"Using tumor-bearing mouse models, we demonstrate that intravenously injected DNA nanorobots deliver thrombin specifically to tumor-associated blood vessels and induce intravascular thrombosis, resulting in tumor necrosis and inhibition of tumor growth," the paper explains.
The mice carried the human breast cancer tumours and were injected with the delivery bots, or nanorobots.
Within 48 hours, the nanorobots had held onto vascular cells at the tumour sites and cut off blood supply to the tumours.
Their delivery was very targeted and the bots did not cause blood cloths or any adverse reactions anywhere else, other than in the cancer tumour.
Tests on humans are a while off but it is a promising step in cancer research.