Artificial muscles release medications with precision
Pills and injections serve us well, but for a patient with a chronic illness like diabetes or heart disease, they are less than perfect. Dosages don’t always match the body’s fluctuating needs, and it’s easy to forget to take a pill. But what if doctors could implant a small capsule under your skin that could detect, say, changes in blood sugar levels or some heart disease-related molecule and then release the exact amount of medication needed to keep your illness in check? That’s the idea behind a new generation of “smart” drug-delivery devices being worked on by a number of research labs. One of the challenges in making these devices practical is building valves capable of releasing precise amounts of medications from the device’s reservoir.