Tiny dental nanobots generate heat to deep clean the teeth

The buildup of bacteria deep in our teeth can cause infections in difficult-to-reach areas, and scientists at the Indian Institute of Science have developed a set of tiny cleaning robots they believe can tackle this problem.

The nano-sized machines can be steered with a magnetic field into microscopic channels in the teeth and kill bacteria with heat, offering a safe and potent way to improve the success of standard root canal treatments.

The team's tiny droids are helically shaped and made from silicon dioxide with an iron coating. This enables them to be controlled by a magnetic field and taken to depths of up to 2,000 micrometers, where the field can be tweaked to make the robots generate heat and kill off the bacteria.

This was demonstrated by injecting the robots into extracted tooth samples, with the scientists successfully moving them about so they penetrate deep into the dentinal tubules to take out the bacteria. Importantly, they also showed that they could retrieve the robots, drawing them out of the tooth sample once the job was done. “No other technology in the market can do this right now,” said team member Debayan Dasgupta.

Having tested the robots on mouse models and proven them safe and effective, the authors of this new study are looking to commercialize the technology through a spin-off company called Theranautilus. They are also working on a purpose-built medical device dentists can use to deploy and control the robots inside the mouth during root canal treatment.