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Miniature soft robots — road to the clinic

Soft small robots offer the opportunity to non-invasively access human tissue to perform medical operations and deliver drugs; however, challenges in materials design, biocompatibility and function control remain to be overcome for soft robots to reach the clinic.

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks all Physical Intelligence Department members at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems for their research contributions and discussions, and the Max Planck Society for funding the related research activities.

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Correspondence to Metin Sitti.

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Sitti, M. Miniature soft robots — road to the clinic. Nat Rev Mater 3, 74–75 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-018-0001-3

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