Tiny robots can track down and kill cancer cells | Tech News [Video]

The sci-fi future we’ve been waiting for is almost here.

Tiny robots that can target and kill cancer cells have been created by scientists in an exciting breakthrough for future treatments.

The nanorobots work by activating the cell’s ‘death receptors’, helping to shrink tumours.

However, because all cells have death receptors, the challenge has been finding a ‘kill switch’, ensuring the nanorobots only target the cancer.

The team, from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, had previously discovered how to create miniscule robots made of amino acids that could be injected and activate death receptors.

Think the 1987 cult classic Innerspace, but without a tiny Dennis Quaid at the controls.

‘This hexagonal nanopattern of peptides becomes a lethal weapon,’ said Professor Björn Högberg, who led the study, published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

‘If you were to administer it as a drug, it would indiscriminately start killing cells in the body, which would not be good. To get …