Edible' robots and batteries could help cure cancer.

A depressing statistics, but figures suggest that as many as half of the population will be diagnosed with some form of cancer in our lifetime. Doctors and roboticists are looking at ways to significantly reduce this number and the answer may lie in batteries and bots you can swallow, according to new research from Carnegie Mellon University. Researchers from the university have created non-toxic 'edible' batteries with melanin pigments naturally found in the skin, hair and eyes. These ingestible batteries could be used to power devices that can be swallowed, while tiny robots could travel through the bloodstream to accurately target cancerous tumors. This ingestible and degradable non-toxic battery could make drug delivery devices in the form of pills possible, with minimal risk and discomfort for patients. The researchers were inspired to make the battery after examining the role of melanins, which absorb ultraviolet light to quench free radicals and protect us from damage, as well as binding and unbinding metallic ions. The team experimented with battery designs that use melanin pigments at either the positive or negative terminals; various electrode materials such as manganese oxide and sodium titanium phosphate; and cations such as copper and iron that the body uses for normal functioning.Although the capacity of a melanin battery is low relative to lithium-ion, it would be high enough to power an ingestible drug-delivery or sensing device, used to diagnose disease.courtesy wired.co.uk