Snail-inspired robots use slime-like motion for precise cancer drug delivery

Researchers at the University of Manchester are developing miniature soft robots to deliver anti-cancer drugs directly to bowel tumors.

The project received nearly £1 million from UK Research and Innovation to improve precision in colorectal cancer treatment.

Robots use snail-inspired slime-like rhythmic movement and peptide-based bionanomaterials that respond to magnetic fields for controlled navigation and drug release.

High-resolution snail movement datasets and a digital twin will be used to train machine learning models and simulate robot–tissue interactions.