German company Nanoscribe is a world leader in “nanofabrication”, offering applications for medicine thanks to minuscule printing properties.

Nanoscribe is a Karlsruhe Institute of Technology initiative which was started back in 2007. The company has developed its 3D printing technology which can create microscopic, detailed prints.

Amazingly, these prints can be up to 250 times finer than a human hair. With such properties, there is a huge range of uses for the technology. For example, it could have many medical applications such as treating cancer patients or developing sperm-bots.

Oliver Schmidt, Professor at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research (IFW) Dresden, is using the technology to develop micro robots for use inside the human body. His idea is for a micro-robot to catch a single sperm and move it directly into an egg cell. He explains:

“With some men, the sperm are not moving, but still healthy. We would like to propel them artificially to be able to reach their final destination.”

To do this, Schmidt uses a magnetic field to control the micro-robots. However, he adds that this does not cause the body any harm.

3D Printing the Micro-Robot Using Nanoscribe

Nanoscribe’s 3D printer creates the micro-robots, as the technology is able to print with a diameter of just 200 nanometers. However, as Schmidt is still a long way off being able to use micro-robots to fertilize eggs, he believes that he can use the sperm cells in a novel way.

Namely, fighting cancer. The reason for this is that sperm can penetrate cell walls. He adds: “It is possible to equip sperm with chemotherapy medication… Then they transport the substance directly to the cancer cell.”

The benefits of this are that chemotherapy would become less traumatic for patients and could be applied on the spot by a doctor. As well as these advanced examples, Nanoscribe already has immediate uses in the medical profession. Andreas Frölich from Nanoscribe explains:

“We have customers who used our printers to attach lenses to extremely thin endoscopes. Or they have printed micro pliers onto the tips of wires. This way one can monitor surgery inside a blood vessel and possibly remove a clot there.”

Want to find out more about Nanoscribe? Read more about their previous accomplishments here.

Source: DW