India develops nanobots for root canals

India: The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has announced their co-development of nanobots that can help in standard root canal treatments. The research team comprises scientists from the Institute and Theranautilus, an IISc-incubated startup.

Using a magnetic field, the scientists claim the nanobots can be controlled deep within dentinal tubules to eliminate bacteria with heat. This is said to offer a safe and potent method to improve the success rate of root canal treatments.

The root canal treatment procedure involves removing the infected pulp inside the tooth, cleaning it with antibiotics to kill the bacteria, before filling up the canal space with a sealant. Where necessary, the cleaned tooth may be capped with an artificial crown.

According to research results published in the Advanced Healthcare Materials journal, the nano-sized robots are tiny enough to reach all the way inside the microscopic channels.

This means it can search out and kill the bacteria residue – including the antibiotic-resistant Enterococcus faecalis bacteria – that current root canal techniques sometimes fail to flush out.

To address the issue, the Indian researchers designed helical nanobots made of silicon dioxide with an iron coating to generate a low-intensity magnetic field.

Testing the nano-sized machines in extracted tooth samples, they were able to control the movement by adjusting the frequency of the magnetic field. The heat generated from manipulating the robot also kills bacteria within its vicinity.

Having tested the nanobots for safety and efficiency using mice models, Shanmukh Srinivas, Theranautilus co-founder and research associate at the IISc Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE) reports that they have established ways to retrieve the nanobots back out from the patient’s teeth.

The researchers are currently developing a new device that will enable the dentist to perform the whole nanobot procedure during root canal treatment.

“We are very close to deploying this technology in a clinical setting,” adds CeNSE professor Ambarish Ghosh, “which was considered futuristic even three years ago.”