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Research |
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My research is focused on development and control of a precise magnetic positioning device to be used for drug delivery within the human body. Recently, magnetically suspended actuators have been considered as a feasible solution for teleoperation purposes. Magnetic levitation based actuators can be used in special environments without problems caused by friction, abrasion or lubrication. These advantages have provided motivation to use magnetic levitation in drug delivery, semi-conductor manufacturing, wind tunnels, magnetic positioning and many more.
The magnetic drug delivery device should remotely transfer the magnetic energy to magnetically susceptible particles. Controlled and suitable amount of magnetic force would compensate the weight or drag force on the particles and would allow positioning of the “drug” particles in three dimensions within the patient’s body. In chemotherapy, cytotoxic drugs are used to kill cancerous cells. These drugs are currently administered intravenously or orally with substantial side effects e.g. gastrointestinal and bone marrow ailments. Specifically for lung cancer therapy, using magnetically targeted aerosolized particles to deliver drugs to the lung, might reduce adverse side effects by administering chemotherapy agents directly to the cancerous tissue rather than distraction of drugs intravenously or orally. Ongoing developments in our research have been presented at several conferences and journals since 2004.
In another phase of my research, I am working on the design and development of magnetically levitated micro-robots to be operated in enclosed chambers, laboratory applications and generally in miniature sized teleoperation tasks.
So far, I have designed and fabricated a magnetic drive unit and achieved the positioning accuracy of 16um in a 4cm traveling range. Bellow, you can find some videos of my progress.
Videos
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