Project Description

Mobile microrobots have many vast potential medical applications, such as targeted drug delivery, biopsy, hyperthermia, brachytherapy, scaffolding, in vivo ablation, sensing, marking, and stem cell therapy. They can revolutionize existing therapies by allowing for disease monitoring, highly localized drug delivery, minimally invasive surgery, and stem cell therapy to be performed inside the human body. The application of mobile microrobots in these biomedical applications requires a truly multidisciplinary investigation in the areas of microrobot design, fabrication, locomotion modes, actuation and control systems, and real-time visualization. In this project, the postdoctoral fellow will work on the development of various types of magnetic mobile microrobots for in vivo biomedical applications. The project will leverage prior work by the co-advisors in developing novel magnetic micro-scale tumbling microrobots (μTUM) that can traverse complex surfaces in both wet and dry environments along with real-time ultrasound imaging of the microrobots locomoting in various animal models. The postdoctoral fellow will be able to utilize the state-of-the-art facilities at Purdue University’s Multi-Scale Robotics and Automation Lab, Cardiovascular Imaging Research Laboratory, Birck Nanotechnology Center, Purdue College of Engineering FlexLab, the Purdue Center for Cancer Research, and the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories for this project.

Start Date

June 1, 2020 

Postdoc Qualifications

PhD Bioengineering/Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Computer Science or equivalent. Experience with microrobotics, soft robotics, MEMS, imaging, or small animal disease models preferred.

Co-advisors

David J. Cappelleri
dcappell@purdue.edu
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Multi-Scale Robotics and Automation Lab
www.multiscalerobotics.org

Craig J. Goergen
cgoergen@purdue.edu
Leslie A. Geddes Associate Professor
Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Surgery, Indiana University School of Medicine
Purdue University Cardiovascular Imaging Research Laboratory (CVIRL)
https://engineering.purdue.edu/cvirl

References

Sitti, M., Giltinan, J., & Yim, S. (2015). Biomedical applications of untethered mobile milli/microrobots. Proceedings of the IEEE, 103, 205–224.

Luo, M., Feng, Y., Wang, T., Guan, J., “Micro-/Nanorobots at Work in Active Drug Delivery”, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2018, 28, 1706100. https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201706100 

H. Ceylan, I. Yasa, U. Kilic, W. Hu, M. Sitti, “Translational prospects of untethered medical microrobots”, Progress in Biomedical Engineering, 1 (2019) 012002.

Bi, C.; Guix, M.; Johnson, B.V.; Jing, W.; Cappelleri, D.J. “Design of Microscale Magnetic Tumbling Robots for Locomotion in Multiple Environments and Complex Terrains.” Micromachines 2018, 9, 68. 

C. Bi, E. Niedert, G. Adam, E. Lambert, L. Solorio, C. Goergen, D. Cappelleri. “Tumbling Magnetic Microrobots for Biomedical Applications”, IEEE International Conference on Robotics, Manipulation, and Automation at Small Scales (MARSS). Helsinki, Finland, July 1-5, 2019.