Scientists have created sperm-size microbot that can be controlled by using magnets. The microbot has been named as MagnetoSperm by its developers that comprise a team led by Univ. of Twente researchers in Netherlands. The microbot can be used for cleaning out clogged arteries to artificially fertilizing an egg.

Engineers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands have to be credited for the creation of such amazing robots that can bring revolution in healthcare sector. The design of MagnetoSperm is very simple and has a head coated with metal. Its body is very flexible and size is about six times the size of human sperm.

The robot can be made swim forward and change direction by using a magnetic field, which is about as wrong as regular fridge magnets.

Dr. Sarthak Misra, a robotics engineer at the University of Twente, said that they have built a biologically inspired micro-robot that holds close similarity to a sperm cell, but is completely fabricated in the lab. The findings of the microbot have been published in the journal Applied Physics Letters. Researchers are confident that they will be able to use it in medical and manufacturing applications.

Dr. Misra and his team made it possible to develop microbots that can be used for drug delivery at the right location in the body. It could be very effective for IVF treatments because it every essential to reach precise locations for performing a successful IVF procedure.

The team is looking forward to devise ways to make MagnetoSperm even smaller and faster. Also, they want to precisely control a swarm of MagnetoSperms.

"We knew that in nature there exist these sperm cells that move by oscillating a single long tail. So then we thought if we had a small magnetic head and a long tail and provided an oscillating magnetic field, we might be able to move this thing through the human body to hard-to-reach areas", said lead researcher Sarthak Misra, from the University of Twente in the Netherlands, tells Co.Design.