For years society has struggled to develop an efficient way to deliver complex drugs through the body. But this is not the case anymore; thanks to biomedical engineer Shriya Srinivasan we can take pills for medicines that we would not usually be able to. For example, Cancer drugs, Diabetes drugs, and many other drugs that require a shot. 

Smallpox vaccine

“say goodbye to painful shots”

According to Megan Rosen’s article, Shriya Srinivasan’s invention of the robot would be “a huge game changer” in the medical industry. Before her invention, pills struggled to enter the bloodstream because of the mucus that would trap the pill from entering the stomach acids so it could dissolve. However, with the Robot pill, we can overcome the mucus and enter the stomach, where the acid will dissolve, and the desired drug will enter the bloodstream.

Robot pill in action video link

The robot pills use unique engineering methods to break up the mucus in a path. Some of these methods consist of surface grooves and small torpedo fins to break up the mucus in the human body. But, there is only one problem; breaking up mucus is a difficult task. This is because mucus has proteins, specifically glycoproteins, bonded strongly by covalent bonds. Covalent bonds are the strongest because they share an even amount of electrons. The strong covalent bonds make it difficult to break up the substance, which is where the fin and surface grooves come to break up the bonds of the strong mucus proteins.

Human alfa2beta2 hemoglobin

With new inventions, people save lots of time and pain. Society will no longer have to inject shots into the body but rather take a pill. That said, we ultimately conclude that robotic pills are the future of medicine.