Bacteriobots: Bacterial Microrobots and Their Potential in Cancer Diagnosis and Therapy

Oncological diseases represents one of the most serious public health problem, claiming millions of lives each year. Routine cancer treatment still has significant limitations, due to side effects, unsufficient effectiveness in metastasis and recurrence, and high cost. Therefore, the development of new approaches for antitumor therapy is an important and priority task. Bacteria can be considered as a versatile and flexible natural biomaterial that has the property of moving independently and penetrating into hard-to-reach areas of the human body, delivering therapeutic agents directly to cancer cells. Also, bacteria demonstrate the natural immunogenicity, which allows them to attract immune cells into the tumor microenvironment (TME) and promote the effectiveness of the immune response. This is a reason why the seemingly fantastic idea of creating a bacteriobot, an autonomous microrobot based on a living bacterium for delivering therapeutic cargo, is becoming more and more popular. This review highlights the basic principles of designing bacterial microrobots, ways to their targeting to cancer cells and supplying with therapeutic agents, as well as the safety of bacteriobots for humans and the prospects for their use in the treatment of malignant neoplasms.