Micro/nanorobotics for sepsis diagnosis and therapy: a frontier in precision medicine

Sepsis is a serious, life-threatening widespread inflammatory response in the body to infection that can result in multiple organ damage and has a relatively high death rate. Traditional antibiotics and supportive treatments have certain deficiencies, such as poor drug accumulation at the site of infection, delayed identification of pathogens, and an inability to precisely regulate the host immune response. New developments in micro- and nanorobotics have provided new paths for sepsis diagnosis and treatment by means of active motion, intelligent sensing and targeted intervention. Biohybrid microrobots containing DNA nanodevices or enzyme sensors can be used for diagnosis to rapidly detect bacterial pathogens, endotoxins and other markers such as procalcitonin. Motivated micro-robots can overcome the biofilm barrier to deliver drugs and increase the local concentration of antibiotics to inhibit bacterial toxins. Functionalised nanobots of cell membrane or enzyme types can target cytokines, reactive oxygen species and circulating mitochondrial DNA to suppress inflammation and organ damage. The above-mentioned multi-functional platforms have combined pathogen clearance, immune modulation and tissue repair into one treatment. Although the above are promising, there are still some problems in biosafety, propulsion efficiency under complex physiological conditions, large-scale production, and the development of clinically relevant animal models. Future work will focus on building intelligent, biocompatible systems capable of autonomous navigation and adaptation to sepsis. Micro- and nanorobots are generally considered to be a new type of devices for treating sepsis that can achieve targeted and personalised therapy through intelligence.