Date: Wednesday, 28th June; Full day

Workshop Aims

Miniaturisation of medical devices is a long-term vision for both the engineering and medical community. Micro/nanorobotics is an exciting field with the potential to open up many new and unexplored medical therapies, from drug delivery to microsurgery. Both tethered and untethered micro-scale devices with nano-scale features that can navigate inside the human body offer unique opportunities for targeted drug delivery and therapy. Advances in micro/nanorobotics research in recent years have brought these “tiny surgeons” closer to reality, but many challenges still remain.

Without the ability to simply scale-down conventional macro-scale robotic actuation and sensing technologies, novel methods of fabrication, actuation and sensing must be developed. There are many different aspects to consider when designing a micro/nanorobot, this workshop will focus on the challenges associated with the mechanical design, material selection and development, fabrication processes and energy storage or delivery for medical microrobots. This workshop brings together researchers from around the world in the field of micro/nanorobotics to present and discuss the challenges that they tackle in their own research.

The format of the workshop will consist of 6 talks from prominent researchers covering topics from on-chip to swimming robots to self-folding microrobots. Finally, during a panel discussion, the current needs and predicted future trends in fabrication techniques for applications in medical micro/nanorobotics will be discussed.

Schedule

09.00 Welcome & Introduction
09.05 Micro-robots that Write, Image, Repair, Destroy, Deliver and Isolate
  Joseph Wang, UCSB, USA
09.35 3D micro/nano fabrication and theoretical analysis for advancing various microrobotics
  Koji Ikuta, University of Tokyo, Japan
10.05 Soft Microrobotics
  Bradley Nelson, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
10.35 Tea and Coffee Break, industry stands
11.05 Materializing Ideas by Additive Microfabrication
  Martin Hermatschweiler, Nanoscribe, Germany
11.25 Picture Perfect – SEM for Microrobotics
  Paul Wood, Tescan, UK
11.45 Modular Deposition Systems
  Lars Allers, Korvus Technology, UK
12.05 Bubble-Propelled and Biohybrid Micromotors
  Oliver Schmidt, IFW Dresden, Germany
12.35 Micro-Nano Manipulation
  Florent Seichepine, Hamlyn Centre, Imperial College London, UK
13.00 Lunch
14.00 Self-Replicating and Self-Assembled Natural Nanorobots for Cancer Therapy
  Sylvain Martel, Polytechnique Montréal, Canada
14.30 Micromanipulation and Microrobotics for Cell Surgery
  Dong Sun, City University of Hong Kong, China
15.00 Propulsion of Microrobots in Complex Media
  Stefano Palagi, Max Planck Institute, Germany
15.30 Panel Discussion
16.00 Closing Remarks

Organiser

  • Maura Power, Hamlyn Centre, Imperial College London, UK
  • Gilgueng Hwang, CNRS, France
  • Florent Seichepine, Hamlyn Centre, Imperial College London, UK

Location

Royal Geographical Society, 
1 Kensington Gore, 
London, 
SW7 2AR
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