One of them had legs and ‘to be honest, looked a little scary’ — Professor Pietro Valdastri is describing one of his designs for a miniature robot capable of navigating its way through a human body, one of 20 prototypes he has designed with the potential to diagnose or ‘even cure’ disease. ‘The idea was that the spider robot would be sent into the colon to investigate a [suspicious] growth, and the legs would help to create space to allow the robot to move through — it’s a narrow space,’ says Professor Valdastri, chair of robotics and autonomous systems at Leeds University. Another of his designs, which looks like a pair of sharp teeth, would carry surgical clips into the body to where needed in order to stem bleeding.
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