Pencil-Tip Robots Carry Medicine Straight to Infected Heart Tissue

Johns Hopkins engineers built magnetic millirobots the size of a grain of rice that work in pairs: one anchors to infected heart tissue as a docking station while the other delivers antibiotics directly to the spot and can be swapped out for repeat doses. Tested so far in heart models and pig heart tissue, the approach could one day shrink a four to six week course of IV antibiotics for heart infections into a procedure lasting an hour or less.