{"id":"doi:10.1126/sciadv.aeb2528","kind":"article","title":"Magnetic medical microrobots with memory-capable genetic circuits","authors":["Chen H","Chen Y","Wang Y","Ning P","Li Y","Sun Y","Wei X","Gao R","Fan X","Tao F","Guo Z","Gu W","Li Z","Yin Z","Cheng Y"],"author_count":15,"year":2026,"published":"2026-05-13","venue":"Science advances","cited_by":0,"doi":"10.1126/sciadv.aeb2528","arxiv_id":null,"nct_id":null,"source_url":"https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aeb2528","archive_url":"https://space-kitty.com/papers/doi:10.1126/sciadv.aeb2528","updated":null,"pmid":"42127204","pmcid":"PMC13170677","openalex_id":null,"pdf_url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13170677/pdf","abstract":"Autonomous microrobots can reach hard-to-access regions in the human body for minimally invasive therapy. However, their microscale size limits the integration of on-board memory, making their operation dependent on external controls. Here, we develop a magnetic probiotic microrobot integrated with memory-capable genetic circuit to execute autonomous antitumor treatment. Through a one-time magnetic hyperthermia trigger, the biological thermal sensor in the microrobot perceives temperature change and activates the memory module Bxb1-ssrA- attB -P7- attP , transferring the microrobots into a therapeutic state to continuously degrade fibrin and soften the tumor microenvironment. The genetic memory remains active for at least 12 days. A synergy toward deep tumor penetration is subsequently established between the memory-encoded softening and the physical penetration through magnetically controlled wave-like locomotion of microrobots. Compared with memory-absent microrobots, the proposed microrobots achieve a 6.70-fold tumor matrix stiffness reduction and boost in vivo anticancer efficacy from 21.86 to 87.52%. Beyond oncology, the proposed system establishes a generalizable framework of memory-encoded medical microrobots.","abstract_license":"CC-BY (article license as recorded by Europe PMC; abstract reproduced unmodified apart from markup removal)","license":"CC-BY","is_open_access":true,"retracted":false,"peer_reviewed":null,"categories":[],"details":null,"provenance":"europepmc","attribution":"Abstract of \"Magnetic medical microrobots with memory-capable genetic circuits\" by Chen H, Chen Y, Wang Y et al., https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aeb2528, used under its Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY); markup removed, otherwise unmodified.","topics":[{"slug":"synthetic-biology","name":"Synthetic Biology & Genome Engineering","domain_slug":"biotech"}],"cited_in_dossiers":[]}