The Bar-Ilan University located in Israel recently broke some very interesting news. Apparently clinical trials of nanorobots with the purpose to fight cancer are just around the corner.

The robots are developed by Dr. Ido Bachelet and when they are injected into patients they are said to be able to identify and kill cancer cells without affecting healthy cells. Dr. Bachlet is a returning scientist from MIT who completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and has been published in the prestigious and popular journals Nature and Science, which means evidentially has some credibility.

Judging from this article featured on the Israeli business portal Globes, the scientist has been working on the project for several years. The mission is here described in Bachelet’s own words:

“The pharmaceutical industry is constantly talking about better medicines, meaning medication which can be controlled. It’s a bit like talking about a better gun, which only kills bad people. What would happen if we could give the rifle to a soldier who is trained to shoot exactly at the right time?”

Nanorobots is the solution of choice in fulfilling this delicate task. Billions of robots built from DNA can live inside a syringe and be injected into the body. Once injected, they engage in seek and destroy missions and they interact both with the human’s body and with each other.

But how are nanometer robots produced? First, produce a DNA sequence of your choice, then replicate it using the origami DNA method. With this technique, a person can give orders to a computer to fold the DNA molecules as required.

The result is, for example, a DNA sequence in the form of an oyster, whose pearl is medication, but the DNA includes a code that is activated when it comes into contact with particular materials in the body. For example, it is possible to ensure that the oyster receives a signal to change its shape and release the medication only when it encounters a tumor cell.

Dr. Bachelet has been telling The Jewish Chronicle that many aspects of medicine today are very primitive. He says the drugs we use today are toxic in several ways and have side effects, and he also claims that between 1% and 3% of patients do not survive surgery after 30 days. Thus, the aim of the nanorobots is to provide a safer and more reliable form of treatment.

Early tests on animals have been very promising and three demonstrations of the robots have been performed for the US Food and Drug Administration. Currently the robots can identify 12 types of cancer, including leukemia and solid tumors. Dr. Bachelet also claims that the molecular DNA robots also can help epileptics and check when diabetes patients need insulin and in what dosage.

The website Next Big Future conveys that a human patient with late stage leukemia will be given the DNA nanobot treatment very soon. Without the treatment the patient would be expected to die in the summer of 2015, according to the website. However, Mistbreaker is currently not able to verify these claims from any reliable additional source. Stay tuned for more updates on the matter, though.