Robots Battling Cancer

Imagine a tiny robot navigating your gut, spotting disease, taking biopsies, or delivering medicine exactly where it's needed. Discover how miniature robots, powered by internal vibrations, could revolutionise gastrointestinal care. Join Yang Liu from Exeter's Small-Scale Robotics Lab to explore this cutting-edge technology and see how something incredibly small can have a huge impact on your health.

Bowel cancer is deadly, largely because it is caught too late. Current methods rely mostly on visuals, spotting suspicious shapes and sizes. But what if we could detect cancer earlier, using how a polyp feels rather than how it looks? Join us as we explore an innovative robotic capsule that uses tiny vibrations and smart AI to spot early signs of cancer, potentially transforming how soon and how accurately we detect bowel cancer.

Imagine robots the size of grains of sand travelling inside your body to detect cancer early. Our tiny microrobots gently vibrate against tissues to feel how stiff or soft they are, since stiffness can be an early sign of cancer. By interpreting these vibrations, we aim to identify cancer at its earliest stages, helping doctors treat diseases sooner, safer, and more accurately.

Hydrogen-powered vehicles have been gaining a lot of attention lately because hydrogen is a clean fuel that only produces water as a byproduct. However, safely and efficiently storing hydrogen inside a vehicle is still a big challenge. In our research, we have developed a new way to create hydrogen storage materials by combining selected porous materials with advanced 3D printing technology. Our goal is to make hydrogen storage safer, more affordable, and more efficient, helping to expand its use in all types of vehicles and other applications.