Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

Medical microrobotics is an emerging multidisciplinary field focusing on the fabrication, manipulation, and application of untethered submillimeter robots. These robots are typically soft and can perform various tasks in tiny, confined, and flooded media such as the human body and biological lumens. Microrobots offer multifaceted advantages, beginning with their capacity to facilitate minimally invasive procedures, thereby mitigating patient trauma, expediting recovery periods, and reducing complications. Furthermore, they empower targeted and precision-based medical interventions, such as drug delivery and biopsies, with a concomitant reduction in side effects and a palpable enhancement in treatment efficacy. Despite their potential, microrobots have not yet been adapted to real-world applications due to fundamental challenges existing in their research and practice, including materials synthesis and characterization, biocompatibility, fabrication and programming at the microscale, and navigation and manipulation. The research program in the applicant's lab (SMART-Lab) aims to address these challenges through a holistic "molecule-to-robot" approach, which is unique in Canada, and develop soft microrobots for real-world applications, particularly for in vivo and in vitro cell and tissue transport.  For this research microscopes are undoubtedly the most important tools for microrobots' materials characterization and visualization and the applicant's research has come to a halt in this direction for the lack of a microscope. The applicant is requesting RTI funds for the purchase of a microscope equipped with a digital micromirror device (DMD), a high-resolution camera, and a high-precision automatic XYZ motorized stage, which are seamlessly integrated into a single software. With access to this equipment, the applicant's team could have remarkable progress in tackling the current microrobotics challenges by a) development of novel materials for microrobots, b) programming and fabrication of microrobots with DMD projection lithography (DMD-PL), and c) Navigation, powering, and manipulation of microrobots. Access to a microscope positions SMART-Lab on an internationally competitive edge and further delay in purchasing this equipment will cause severe setbacks in realizing this position. Multidisciplinary knowledge in this research and proficiency of HQP in operating a microscope and a DMD provides them with appealing technical skills employers search for, including microscale imaging, quality control, fabrication, and additive manufacturing. The  program enhances their career adaptability in relevant markets such as materials science, display technology, additive manufacturing, and medical imaging. Lastly, the niche skill of fabrication and manipulating microrobots using light holds promise in robotics and automation.