Prostate cancer is a common disease in men, but treating it is difficult. Scientists, Martina Ussia and her collective have developed magnetically driven microrobots that can help treat prostate cancer. After these microrobots penetrate cells, they can be controlled using magnets to dissolve cytotoxic zinc. Thus, these new robots are designed to navigate inside cancer cells and to release a substance that can kill the cancer cells. This could be a new and innovative way to treat cancer without surgery. Q-Phase was used to measure the decline of cell growth and cell surface. Quantitative phase imaging technology provided both imaging and numerical data about such observation. It is another example of cancer treatment research, such as migrastatics studies, where Q-Phase contributed to a new drug investigation.

Highlights:

• Self-degrading microrobots can target cancer cells and dissolve zinc into them
• There is a way of controlling microrobots using a magnetic field
• Microrobots have been proven through experiments to reduce the growth of cancer cells
• Q-Phase measured the decline in cell growth of cancer cells

Article was written by Ussia, M. et al 2023