Abstract
Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) can be viewed as self-propelled natural microrobots. These bacterial microrobots can be remotely controlled using magnetic fields due to their internal chain of iron-oxide nanoparticles acting like a compass needle. This internal chain enables them to adopt a magnetotactic behavior that can be exploited to perform a variety of microscale tasks from microassembly and micro-manufacturing to the delivery through microvascular networks of therapeutic agents to tumors. To effectively support these applications, three-dimensional (3D) aggregations of MTB become essential in order to manipulate and guide the bacteria effectively in the human microvasculature to deliver a predefined dose of therapeutics. To achieve such aggregations in a 3D volume, time-varying magnetic field sequences were developed enabling us to simulate in time the existence of a magnetic monopole. This article presents and compares three different time-varying magnetic field sequences generated by three orthogonal pairs of electromagnets able to generate such 3D aggregations of MTB.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.