Small intestine robot coming soon?

Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Mark Rentschler along with graduates Levi Pearson, Greg Formosa and Micah Prendergast are working together to develop a new project called sophisticated small intestine robot.

The study was funded with $ 1.25 million from the National Science Foundation.

This long pink tube coil is a small intestine robot project that looks simple but in fact its internal structure is extremely complex.

It is made up of "smooth muscle", akin to the type of muscle that functions in the body. When swallowing food down the esophagus, these small intestinal muscle plaques will slowly push food and nutrients through the gastrointestinal tract.

It is known that the idea of ​​robot small intestine seems strange, because robot devices are often said to be hard and bulky. However, Rentschler and an interdisciplinary team of CU Boulder researchers, including mechanical engineer Christoph Keplinger, are facing this situation if applied to it.

Keplinger said: "People often imagine robots are metallic and clumsy, but now we have been developing this robot based on flexible materials and special expansion electronic circuits and it is lined with sensors, it is also expandable and elastic on demand ".

In addition to Rentschler and Keplinger, the team includes computer science associate professor Nikolaus Correll, mechanical associate professor J. Sean Humbert and a number of other graduates and universities who are also involved.

Rentschler envisions an artificial small intestine robot as a tool to promote medical research and evaluate treatments for colorectal cancer and colorectal cancer.

Rentschler said: "Currently, this work is done with pigs, but the size of their small intestines is not the same as humans, and they have some distinct anatomical properties in the body -" Rentschler said.

If successfully built, this small intestine robot will be a support tool for many gastro-gastroenterologists, helping doctors have more skills in treatment as well as strengthening materials. Alternative treatment for future cancer patients'.

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