Undergraduate student Meghan Canter of Forest, Va., a senior
majoring in biological sciences in the College of Science, is
actively involved in the development and refinement of
BacteriaBots. It is like a micro-scale robot, said Canter. We
work with engineered E. coli and attach it to micron sized
particles. The bacterium acts as a propulsion force to move the
particles. We try to direct where we want the particles to move.
The small-scale robots have a range of possible uses in the
fields of bio-sensing, medicine, micro-manufacturing and
assembly, microelectronics, and biomaterials. One big picture
use for BacteriaBots is to clean up oil spills. You could send
the BacteriaBots into the oil spill area and direct them where
to go using chemotaxis, which is a process of using chemicals to
either attract or repel the bacteria. Canter is personally
investigating how BacteriaBots could help drug delivery for
tumors. Recent research that shows Salmonella typhimurium is
attracted to tumors has potential implications