IRIS :: Publications

Publications of IRIS Members

Reference (inproceedings)

G. Dogangil, O. Ergeneman, J. J. Abbott, S. Pané, H. Hall, S. Muntwyler, B. J. Nelson, "Toward Targeted Retinal Drug Delivery with Wireless Microrobots", Proc. of 2008 IEEE/RSJ Int. Conf. on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS2008), Nice, France, September 2008.

Abstract

Retinal vein occlusion is an obstruction of blood flow due to clot formation in the retinal vasculature, and is among the most common causes of vision loss. Currently, the most promising therapy involves injection of t-PA directly into small and delicate retinal vessels. This procedure requires surgical skills at the limits of human performance. In this paper, targeted retinal drug delivery with wireless magnetic microrobots is proposed. We focus on four fundamental issues involved in the development of such a system: biocompatible coating of magnetic microrobots, diffusion-based drug delivery, characterization of forces needed to puncture retinal veins, and wireless magnetic force generation. We conclude that targeted drug delivery with magnetic microrobots is feasible from an engineering perspective, and the idea should now be explored for clinical efficacy.

Keywords

[ BibTeX | XML | Full paper | Back ]