Tiny Tech Gut Check

Like a pharmaceutical version of James Bond’s Aston Martin, the UMD-developed ingestible “smart pill” is loaded with hidden tech gadgetry for a high-stakes mission. The destination? A patient’s bowels. 

Zooming through the intestines, the pill fires electrical currents to detect the target—an abnormal growth needing a biopsy. Once there, it engages its tiny springs, gears and pistons to project a scythe-like blade from its shell. Spinning in motorized circles, it lances the problematic polyp, seizes some tissue and snaps back into the capsule, which is expelled from the body 24 hours after it’s swallowed and sent to a lab.

Unlike an Ian Fleming novel, this pill isn’t fiction, though still a bit futuristic. Using artificial intelligence, low-power electronics and 3D-printed hardware, the device powered by a tiny battery could become reality within five years to screen for gastrointestinal diseases, detect bacterial imbalances and deliver drugs locally to GI invaders.

Smart pills for GI tract imaging have existed for years, but this one could also have surgical applications, along with advanced diagnostic capabilities. The small intestine, now nearly impossible to explore, could suddenly be probed for Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and various cancers. Colonoscopies, meanwhile, could be significantly reduced.

“You no longer have to go through sedation or fast for 24 hours; you would do this at home at a fraction of the cost,” says Distinguished University Professor and Herbert Rabin Distinguished Chair in Engineering Reza Ghodssi, coauthor of a paper demonstrating the biopsy technique published in June in the Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems.

The research funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases signals a future of what he calls “wireless remote healthcare.” 

In testing, the engineering team pushes the pill through pig intestines purchased from slaughterhouse until it arrives to a section manipulated to mimic inflammation. Through a Bluetooth-equipped phone app, a researcher activates the device.

“At the push of a button, the heater melts, the device springs out, scrapes the tissue and zips back into the capsule, like a Rube Goldberg contraption,” says Justin Stine, an assistant research scientist for UMD’s MATRIX Lab, which focuses on autonomous robotics.

In another recent study, the researchers demonstrated a smart pill delivering drugs to localized abnormalities. A springboard inside the capsule ejects a microneedle from its shell and into the intestinal wall. The procedure could eliminate side effects of pills that dissolve into the bloodstream.

The researchers’ next step is to use AI to train the pills to function autonomously, navigating the gut, Ghodssi says, “like a driverless taxi on the streets of San Francisco.”