Investigating the Dynamics of the Magnetic Micromotors in Human Blood

The field of micromotors has been growing exponentially with increased emphasis on biomedical applications, with various in vivo demonstrations of targeted drug delivery, biosensing, and gene delivery, among others. In parallel, these micromotors have been recently used for probing the rheological properties of both intra- and extracellular environments. Here, we demonstrate the application of magnetic micromotors for investigation of rheological properties of human blood. While there are several techniques to sense mechanical properties of blood, such as deformability of the red blood cells, this is the first experimental observation of using micromotors for these biophysical investigations. We hope that this will lead to a better understanding of the nature of interactions of micromotors with biological systems and expand the scope of micromotors for probing other related systems, such as interstitial fluids and other complex biological fluids.