Collaborative wireless nanobots for tumor discovery and drug delivery

Current approaches in combating cancer employ nanoparticle-based therapies that harness biological and chemical phenomena to deliver anticancer drugs. Successful studies have shown the utility of leveraging biochemical cues to recruit nanoparticles to the tumor microenvironment. In this paper, we explore the possibility of using collaborative wireless nanobots or WiNoBots to efficiently target and accumulate at the site of tumor tissues. Unlike biological and chemical approaches, nanobots directly communicate with each other via wireless signals. Signaling nanobots emit a wireless signal to receiving nanobots, which move in the direction of the electric field gradient. Together these nanobots concert a collaborative action to home to the site of a signal. Using computer simulations, we show that collaborative wireless signaling produces an aggregate wavefront that reduces the mean path length that nanobots travel to reach the site of a diseased tissue. Our results motivate further studies of these unique nanobot wireless systems, which may be able to confine and concentrate a therapeutic response.