Computational studies of steering nanoparticles with magnetic gradients

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20000971

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) guided nanorobotic systems that could perform diagnostic, curative, and reconstructive treatments in the human body at the cellular and subcellular level in a controllable manner have recently been proposed. The concept of a MRI-guided nanorobotic system is based on the use of a MRI scanner to induce the required external driving forces to guide magnetic nanocapsules to a specific target. However, the maximum magnetic gradient specifications of existing clinical MRI systems are not capable of driving magnetic nanocapsules against the blood flow. This thesis presents the visualization of nanoparticles inside blood vessel, Graphical User Interface (GUI) for updating file including initial parameters and demonstrating the simulation of particles and C++ code for computing magnetic forces and fluidic forces. The visualization and GUI were designed using Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML), MATLAB and C#. The addition of software for MRI-guided nanorobotic system provides simulation results. Preliminary simulation results demonstrate that external magnetic field causes aggregation of nanoparticles while they flow in the vessel. This is a promising result -in accordance with similar experimental results- and encourages further investigation on the nanoparticle-based self-assembly structures for use in nanorobotic drug delivery.