title: Spermbots: potential impact for drug delivery and assisted reproductive technologies.
abstract: Micromotors and nanomotors are an emerging research field that aims at achieving locomotion on the microscale for a variety of applications such as drug delivery, single cell manipulation, microsensors and lab-on-a-chip devices, just to point out a few. The enthusiastic development of hybrid micromotors harnessing biological power sources for physiologically compatible nano/microdevices has recently brought a lot of attention to the international research community that is looking for a solution for the actuation and locomotion on the microscale. This article describes the potential of sperm-driven micro-bio-robots in the biomedical field such as drug delivery or single cell manipulation. Herein, a specific potential of the sperm-driven micro-bio-robot is described that might have impact on the development of assisted reproductive technologies.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Integrative Nanosciences, IFW Dresden , Helmholtzstraße 20, 01069 Dresden , Germany.
authors.forename: Veronika
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Magdanz
authors.forename: Oliver G
authors.initials: OG
authors.lastname: Schmidt
mesh_terms: D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D036103:Nanotechnology; D027724:Reproductive Techniques, Assisted; D012371:Robotics; D013094:Spermatozoa
keywords: assisted reproduction technology; drug delivery; micromotors; spermatozoa; spermbot