On the piecewise-smooth dynamics of robot-cancer interactions at microscale

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Many bowel cancers may, in fact, spread very soon after the original malignant transformation has occurred, which could be some years before the disease is diagnosed. For metastases to occur, malignant cells must acquire the ability to invade adjacent capillaries or lymphatics and then spread via the circulation to other parts of the body. These cells can then grow and form other tumours, which may be readily apparent on investigative scans. However, early metastases may be too small to be reliably detected by current modalities, and, for most cancers, there is no available blood test to detect malignant cells within the circulation. This project seeks to develop novel mathematical techniques for analysing the sensing capability of micro-robots to aid the detection of hard-to-visualise early metastases in the gastrointestinal circulation.