"Scientists are forging new territory in the field of soft robotics. One of the latest advances is a flexible, microscopic hand-like gripper," researchers said.
The development could help doctors perform remotely guided surgical procedures or perform biopsies. The materials also could someday deliver therapeutic drugs to hard-to-reach places, they said.
Investigator David H Gracias from the Johns Hopkins University and colleagues note that many robotic tools require cords to provide power to generate their movements.
But cords add to the bulk of robots, which limits the spaces they can access. To address this constraint, scientists have turned to hydrogels.
However, hydrogels are too floppy for some applications, so the group combined the hydrogels with a stiff biodegradable polymer, making the microhands strong enough to wrap around and remove cells.
The team then sought a way to control where the grippers go once deployed in the body.
The researchers incorporated magnetic nanoparticles in the materials so they could guide the microhands with a magnetic probe.
The team concluded that this added trait could help in the microassembly or microengineering of soft or biological parts, or give surgeons the ability to remotely direct where biopsies are taken.
The research appears in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.