In this review we show and describe a concept of designing autonomously moving artificial cells (chemical robots) carrying drugs and having tactic behavior based on artificial chemotaxis. Such systems could help to provide new and more efficient drug delivery applications. Chemical robot can be constructed based on the self-organization - natural “bottom-up” way - of fatty acid or lipid molecules into ordered nano- or micrometer size objects that have the ability to move and respond to environmental stimuli. The idea of using tactic carriers in drug delivery applications can be justified by the fact that cancer sites in the living body have different physiological characters (lower pH and higher resting temperature) compared to normal cells. The proposed “bottom-up” design method for self-propelled objects at small scales for targeted drug delivery applications could realize the original designation of nanoscience proposed 50 years ago by Richard Feynman.
A stochastic cellular automaton is developed for modeling waves in excitable media. A scale of key features of excitation waves can be reproduced in the presented framework such as the shape, the propagation velocity, the curvature effect and spontaneous appearance of target patterns. Some well-understood phenomena such as waves originating from a point source, double spiral waves and waves around some obstacles of various geometries are simulated. We point out that unlike the deterministic approaches, the present model captures the curvature effect and the presence of target patterns without permanent excitation. Spontaneous appearance of patterns, which have been observed in a new experimental system and a chemical lens effect, which has been reported recently can also be easily reproduced. In all cases, the presented model results in a fast computer simulation.
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