HKU Engineering pioneers nanorobot navigation with infrared “GPS” for image-guided therapy

Nanorobots have shown great promise in precision medicine over the past few decades. Yet one key challenge remains: how to track and guide these tiny devices in real time as they move through complex physiological environments. Existing imaging approaches often require long exposure times to detect ionising radiation or suffer from blurred images due to strong light scattering in living tissues.

A research team led by Professor Feifei Wang from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has developed the first near-infrared II (NIR-II, 1,000-3,000 nm) fluorescence vision platform for magnetic nanorobot navigation. This platform enables clear, real-time visual feedback for guiding nanorobots inside living bodies, opening new possibilities for image-guided precision therapy.

"The key question is how we can monitor nanorobots in the body with high specificity, sensitivity and clarity," said Professor Wang. "NIR-II fluorescence navigation offers superior contrast, resolution and penetration depth because light scattering is reduced and tissue autofluorescence is diminished at wavelengths above 1,000 nm."

The team's platform supports two-plex NIR-II imaging at different wavelengths, creating a "GPS-like map" for nanorobot navigation. This allows researchers to simultaneously visualise both the nanorobots and their target sites in real time, enabling precise in vivo locomotion with high molecular specificity and sensitivity.

"These NIR-II magnetic nanorobots are highly stable, even in the acidic environment of the stomach," said Dr Zideng Dai, first author of the study. "We successfully achieved targeted drug delivery to the gastrointestinal tract for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease."

The NIR-II magnetic nanorobots demonstrated precise locomotion in the peritoneal cavity, hindlimb, liver, spleen and lower gastrointestinal tract in live mouse models. Compared with previous approaches, the platform provided higher-resolution visual feedback, enabled locomotion speeds more than 100 times faster, and achieved approximately 30% higher delivery efficiency.

This NIR-II nanorobot technology offers a promising new strategy for precise, image-guided drug delivery, with potential applications in the treatment of inflammatory diseases, tumours and other conditions requiring targeted therapy.

The research was published in the journal Science Advances, in an article entitled "Real-Time Near-Infrared II Fluorescence Navigation of Magnetic Nanorobots for Image-Guided Therapy".

Link to the paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aea5126

About Professor Feifei Wang Professor Feifei Wang is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at HKU. Before joining HKU, he was a postdoctoral scholar at the Department of Chemistry, Stanford University. He obtained his PhD from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Shenyang Institute of Automation (SIA), Chinese Academy of Sciences. His research interests involve near-infrared II fluorescence imaging, super-resolution imaging, advanced biomedical imaging, AI4S, technologies have a broad and profound impact on biomedical applications. He recently received the 2025 NSFC Young Scientists Fund-Type B and 2025 Advanced Materials Award recognizing his research contributions. Research team website: https://www.eee.hku.hk/~ffwang/

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