Prof. SHEN Yajing’s Research on One-Step Strategy for Sperm-Like Micro-Robots Published in Nature Communications

Prof. Shen Yajing (left) and co-first author Dr. Yang Xiong (right) with the magnetic actuation platform for microswimmer control in front. [Download Photo]

A research paper titled “One-Step Formation of Polymorphous Sperm-Like Microswimmers by Vortex Turbulence-Assisted Microfluidics” led by Prof. SHEN Yajing, Associate Professor of the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, and his research team was recently published in first-rate multidisciplinary journal Nature Communications.

The paper was co-authored by former postdoctoral researcher Dr. TAN Rong (first author), Research Assistant Professor Dr. YANG Xiong (co-first author), Prof. Shen and a collaborator from Zhejiang University.

Abstract of the paper:
Microswimmers are considered promising candidates for active cargo delivery to benefit a wide spectrum of biomedical applications. Yet, big challenges still remain in designing the microswimmers with effective propelling, desirable loading and adaptive releasing abilities all in one. Inspired by the morphology and biofunction of spermatozoa, we report a one-step formation strategy of polymorphous sperm-like magnetic microswimmers (PSMs) by developing a vortex turbulence-assisted microfluidics (VTAM) platform. The fabricated PSM is biodegradable with a core-shell head and flexible tail, and their morphology can be adjusted by vortex flow rotation speed and calcium chloride solution concentration. Benefiting from the sperm-like design, our PSM exhibits both effective motion ability under remote mag/netic actuation and protective encapsulation ability for material loading. Further, it can also realize the stable sustain release after alginate-chitosan-alginate (ACA) layer coating modification. This research proposes and verifies a new strategy for the sperm-like microswimmer construction, offering an alternative solution for the target delivery of diverse drugs and biologics for future biomedical treatment. Moreover, the proposed VTAM could also be a general method for other sophisticated polymorphous structures fabrication that isn’t achievable by conventional laminar flow.