Question: Do you think the future of robotics in medicine is capable to help this battle?

Ee Lyn Lim answered on 20 Jun 2013:

Nanorobots! This page probably tells you everything you need to know about them: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/nanorobot.htm

It’s a lot to read, so I’ll give you a summary of what they can do – they can treat heart disease (by breaking up clots in the blood vessels), fight parasites (by injecting toxins straight into the bug), treat cancer (by going directly to the tumour and injecting the medicine there, without affecting the cells around it), and even help heal wounds (by taking out very small pieces of dirt and making blood clot faster). They will often have a little camera attached, so scientists and doctors can see where it’s going, and tell it where to go next. It will be amazing when they get good enough to be used in the clinic!

But robots don’t have to be tiny to help in medicine. More and more things are becoming automatic, from taking x-rays to preparing drugs to testing samples from patients. There’s even a robot being made to show a patient’s medical file in the operation room, so that the surgeon can turn pages by just waving his hands – without taking his gloves off! Every little invention makes medicine faster, cleaner and more accurate (and probably cheaper too) so that’s definitely a big help!