Light force-powered cellular medical micromachines
Ma D., Ren X., Zheng J., Zheng L., Yang T., Pang H.
Narrative Review, published in Front Bioeng Biotechnol (2026) — summary generated from the PubMed abstract.
Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.
- Level A · Stronger Clinical Evidence
- Level B · Emerging clinical evidence with positive signals
- Level C · Early human research exploring benefits
- Level D · Scientific groundwork from lab and animal studies
- Emerging · Emerging topic under active research
This page is generated from the PubMed record. The Thai description is an automated summary of bibliographic fields and the abstract, not a full translation, and is not medical advice.
- Study type
- Narrative Review
- Journal
- Front Bioeng Biotechnol (2026)
- Reported sample size
- —
- Source database
- Europe PMC
- PMID
- 41658983
- PMCID
- PMC12872812
- DOI
- 10.3389/fbioe.2026.1746261
Abstract (original English)
With the synergistic advancement of micro/nanotechnology and intelligent control systems, medical micromachines are emerging as promising alternatives to conventional diagnostic and therapeutic methods, offering enhanced operational precision and minimal invasiveness for precision medicine applications. However, most existing micromachines rely on artificial synthetic materials, which involve complex micro-nano fabrication and raise biosafety concerns regarding immunogenicity and limited long-term therapeutic efficacy in deep tissues. The integration of natural biological cells with programmable optical tweezer has opened new avenues to overcome these limitations, enabling precise behavioral regulation and in situ assembly of cell-based micromachines. This review systematically outlines the design strategies underlying five categories of light force-powered cellular micromachines, including chemotactic bacteria, photosynthetic microalgae, red blood cells (RBCs), immune cells and subcellular structures, and highlights their pioneering applications in targeted drug delivery, minimally invasive surgery and desired immunotherapy. Meanwhile, it also addresses key challenges such as limited tissue penetration depth, phototoxicity management and operation intelligence, while suggesting future directions like adaptive optics-driven swarm control, optomechanobiological coupling and biop
What this study does not prove
- • This study does not prove SVF is an approved treatment or a replacement for standard care.
- • This is a narrative review: it collects no new patient data and does not systematically appraise evidence quality.
Evidence level
Evidence from laboratory and animal studies provides groundwork for understanding mechanisms and potential before human studies continue.
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