Harvard Develops Cancer-Killing Nanorobots

The relentless pursuit of a cure for one of humanity's most devastating diseases took a rather large leap with a very small invention recently as Harvard develops cancer-targeting nanorobots that seek out cancer cells and kills them.

The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering is reporting that they have developed a device made of DNA that seeks out cancer cells and injects its payload of DNA-altering molecules, telling the cancer cells to self-destruct.

The process of creating the nanorobots is called DNA origami. The researchers involved with this project used an open source computer program called Cadnano to design the nanorobots, which are called as such because "it is capable of some robotic tasks,” says co-author of the study, Ido Bachelet, in a report by Nature.com. Cadnano was developed by Shawn Douglas, a biophysicist at the Wyss Institute...