Robots! (2/5): How you could see inside your body — with a micro-robot | Alex Luebke and Vivek Kumbhari

0:00Vivek Kumbhari: Hi, it's Sherelle, host of TED Tech. This week, I want to share a playlist of some of my favorite TED Tech episodes.

0:16Vivek Kumbhari: What if there was a new tool that could promise more precision and accuracy in diagnosing future ailments? And all you have to do is swallow it. This is TED Tech, a podcast from the TED Audio Collective. I'm your host, Sherelle Dorsey. Today, we'll learn about a robot tablet that could define the future of medicine. This little pill could eliminate the time and costs of exploratory operations in order to get right to the issues at hand taking place in the human body. In this talk, engineer Alex Lubke and physician scientist Vivek Kumbari demonstrate how a remote-operated pill could change the face of medicine.

1:03Vivek Kumbhari: Let's listen in. But first, a quick break to hear from our sponsors.

1:16Vivek Kumbhari: This episode is sponsored by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI, they already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love, it helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing and estimate trade-in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One.

1:48Vivek Kumbhari: This episode is brought to you by Planet Visionaries, a podcast in partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative. What connects a hidden laboratory in the Amazon, giant pandas in China's mountain forests, research relating to the ocean, and communities living alongside wildlife in India. That's what you'll hear on season six of Planet Visionaries, stories from the explorers, scientists, and conservation leaders whose work addresses research, biodiversity, and conservation issues in specific locations. Planet Visionaries, hosted by environmental advocate and professional climber Alex Honnold, brings you real stories of discovery, determination, and research and initiatives relating to environmental change.

2:28Vivek Kumbhari: In partnership with the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, this is Planet Visionaries. Listen or watch wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored by Charles Schwab. Wouldn't it be great if life's little upgrades didn't feel like a splurge? Like getting the aisle seat with extra legroom for a one-hour flight, ordering extra guac with zero hesitation, or paying for assembly on that swing set because you'd rather spend your Saturday doing literally anything else. It's called Living Filthy Comfortable. And whatever filthy comfortable looks like to you, Schwab can help you find it with investing, trading, education, and human help all in one place.

3:12Vivek Kumbhari: Learn more at schwab.com. Investing involves risk, including loss of principle.

3:19Vivek Kumbhari: And now, Alex Luque and physician scientist Vivek Kumbari takes the TED stage.

3:26Alex Luebke: I'd like to invite you to go on a fantastic voyage with me today as we explore inside the human body. Inside, each and every one of us holds mysteries and wonders that, if unlocked, leads to better health, performance, and longevity. But seeing inside has proven to be quite difficult. Since the beginning of the modern era, the only way to really look inside was through rudimentary surgeries. Over the past 150 years or so, we've had great technologies that allow us to look from the outside, like x-rays and MRIs. But what I propose and what I'd like us to explore today is looking at micro-robotics inside the human body.

4:10Alex Luebke: As a first step on that journey, let me introduce you to PillBot. PillBot is a small wireless robot that is remotely controlled, and it swims around in three dimensions in a water-filled human stomach. This robot has things you would expect on a robot. It has a camera, so it gives you a live video feed. It has control circuitry. It has LED lights because inside the human body is quite dark. It has a wireless data link and it has a battery. Now, the way this robot moves is it has three pump jet thrusters that squirt water in six different directions that allow the pillbot to fly around in three-dimensional space in a water volume.

4:52Alex Luebke: Over the past five years, we've spent a lot of time to get the size of this robot smaller and smaller. What we started with wasn't quite, not quite swallowable. But we finally worked our way down, and where we are these days is about the size of a small multivitamin capsule. Thank you. Now, we're going to fly this robot around for you for a little bit. But to do that, I'd like to invite Dr. Vivek Kambari. He's the chairman of gastroenterology at the Mayo Clinic. And I'd like to have him pilot this pillbot while I turn it on.

5:37Vivek Kumbhari: Here's a common scenario I encounter in my clinic. A patient who's generally in good health comes to see me because they have abdominal pain. And I suspect it's coming from the stomach. Now, I need to understand precisely what the problem is, but I can't just pop my head in and take a look. So, and despite that patient sitting right in front of me, I need to ask them to go back home and come back to the hospital on another occasion so I can put them to sleep with anesthesia so that they allow me to insert this long tube with the camera at the tip through the mouth and into the stomach. This is an endoscopy, and it's a relatively invasive and expensive procedure, and we're on a mission to do better.

6:26Vivek Kumbhari: We'd like to transform this experience by dematerializing the physical hospital into PillBot. I'm using a game controller to navigate PillBot, although I could have also used a tablet or a smartphone. You can move it around rather quickly here and you can imagine that using the tank this size we're still able to navigate the entire experience and this tank is significantly larger than the human stomach or any internal human organ for that matter. So we developed Toolbot to allow for direct visualization of internal organs anywhere and anytime. whether you're at home sitting on your couch, visiting space, or right here on stage at TED.

7:14Vivek Kumbhari: What do you think, Alex? Should we go ahead and swallow PillBot?

7:25Vivek Kumbhari: In just a few seconds, PillBot entered the stomach. So we're in the stomach now, and I'm carefully navigating around, looking for any changes in surface architecture. That might represent an ulcer or a cancer or any other pathology. And I'm able to get very similar views as I would if I'd use a conventional endoscope. Now, I'm able to see the entire stomach and revisit sites that pique my curiosity. Now, what could further improve this experience is if we used an augmented reality headset for 3D visualization of a stomach or artificial intelligence for detection and characterization of an abnormality.

8:13Vivek Kumbhari: Now, fortunately for Alex, on this brief review, everything is looking normal here.

8:24Vivek Kumbhari: Though if there were a problem, being able to show and discuss with Alex in real time elevates his understanding of his health, and is going to make him more compliant with therapy. So now that we're done here, PillBot will take its natural course through and out the body. And fortunately for Alex, he'll have no awareness of this, and he won't have to retrieve this capsule.

8:52Vivek Kumbhari: Now, this robot was designed for the stomach, though the entire body needs this capability. Parts of the body, such as the colon, the heart and the brain should be made accessible with specialized robots that are just as easy to use. I've dreamt of the day when I could explore the inside of the human body with robots, recognizing it would be an inflection point in my ability to help people live longer and healthier lives. Back to you, Alex. Thank you, Alex.

9:33Alex Luebke: That was yummy. And no, you don't feel anything when the robot moves around inside you. It's quite simple. But think of that, how easy it was to get access to internal imagery anywhere. So that's going to allow us not only internal imagery, but also the diagnosis and the treatment that the doctor might be able to give. That's going to give us access to a vast amount of information that we can then use to train AI. And with AI, we're going to be able to have it automate a whole variety of different functions, from performance improvement of the robot itself to autonomous control, where it actually flies around and maps out the entire interior surface of the stomach all on its own.

10:17Alex Luebke: That diagnosis and the treatment also comes along with that, and we train AI to help learn how to do that, and eventually interventions. dimensions. Let's talk about a little bit where we want to go next. So the first thing we're going to do, we'll add some accelerometers on there so it actually helps with that autonomous control. Also very interesting, we can start adding different sensors. So wherever the robot is going, we can go ahead and measure the health of what it's looking at right there. And as far as doing lab-on-chip capabilities, where you can actually analyze the material right there in situ on the robot.

10:53Alex Luebke: Imagine now being able to put different tools onto this where you can cut and you can cauterize or inject medicine. Well, now you have a pill surgeon. And of course, you can have clusters of these robots that work together in unison to do complex procedures inside the human body. To go even smaller, we actually have technology that exists today that allows us to make robots at the nanoscale, which now can bring robots anywhere in the human body, even into the human brain. And there's some phenomenal power sources that are available coming online as well. While PillBot is just about to go through clinical trials, it'll be a couple years till it's on the market, there's a long way to go we still have to bring the full ability to do inner space exploration on us all.

11:41Alex Luebke: But it's a worthwhile journey to go on. Imagine being able to have all this information for you, for your health, for your family, and for humanity. So I'd like to invite all of you to join us in being brave, and let's bring micro robots inside the human body. Thank you very much.

12:07Vivek Kumbhari: That was Alex Luque and physician scientist Vivek Kumbari at TED 2024.

12:20Vivek Kumbhari: The PillBot technology is an exciting advancement in the realm of precision medicine, a discipline within medicine that has been emerging to tailor treatment based on a variety of factors specific to patients. This personalized approach takes genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors into account. The goal is to get more accurate diagnoses, effective therapies, and reduce side effects, significantly improving patient outcomes. PillBot's ability to see without the need for invasive surgeries and even the promise of delivering medicine through the device seems like a game changer in medical technology.

12:59Vivek Kumbhari: By offering real-time internal imaging and precise drug delivery, devices like this could revolutionize how we approach complex medical conditions. They could allow for earlier detection and intervention, minimizing the need for more invasive procedures and potentially reducing recovery times. The integration of AI and machine algorithms with these kinds of devices could enhance their diagnostic capabilities, providing physicians with detailed insights and predictive analytics. This innovation holds the potential to not only improve individual patient care, but also to transform the healthcare system by making treatments more efficient and personalized.

13:44Vivek Kumbhari: And that's it for today. TED Tech is part of the TED Audio Collective. This episode was produced by Nina Bird-Lawrence, edited by Alejandra Salazar, and fact-checked by Julia Dickerson. Special thanks to Maria Latias, Farah DeGrange, Daniela Belarezo, and Roxanne Heilesh. I'm Sherelle Dorsey. Thanks for listening in.

14:35Vivek Kumbhari: This episode is sponsored by Capital One. Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI. They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge, and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love. It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trade-in value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed. That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One.

15:04Alex Luebke: Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, email, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the headline hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goo.gle slash workspace with Gemini. That's G-O-O dot G-L-E slash workspace with Gemini.

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