epages News [Doctors, August 2003]

• Now, 'smart' dust to detect microbes
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Now, 'smart' dust to detect microbes

Aug 26, 2003: Washington: Tiny silicon crystals that can line themselves up according to order may be a first step to making ‘smart dust’ that could detect biological or chemical agents or disease-causing microbes, US researchers said. A team at the University of California, San Diego said they had created microscopic grains of sand that can orient them. This is a key development in what we hope will one day make possible the development of robots the size of a grain of sand. The vision is to build miniature devices that can move with ease through a tiny environment, such as a vein or an artery, to specific targets, then locate and detect chemical or biological compounds and report this information to the outside world. Such devices could be used to monitor the purity of drinking or sea-water, to detect hazardous chemical or biological agents in the air or even to locate and destroy tumour cells in the body.