From motion to diagnosis: Engineered micro/nanorobots enabling new capabilities in point-of-care testing

Point-of-care testing (POCT) is essential for rapid, decentralized diagnostics, significantly enhancing patient outcomes through timely clinical interventions. However, conventional POCT platforms are fundamentally bottlenecked by passive diffusion, limiting their sensitivity, specificity, and response time in complex biological matrices. Micro/nanorobots (MNRs) have emerged as a transformative solution to these thermodynamic constraints. By leveraging autonomous locomotion, MNRs introduce active mass transport and localized convection, profoundly enhancing analyte-probe interactions. This review comprehensively examines the emerging role of MNRs in POCT, systematically exploring their integration with colorimetric, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, motion-based, and electrochemical sensing modalities. Furthermore, we provide a detailed overview of their robust clinical applications. We critically examine the outstanding translational challenges and explore future directions shaped by handheld “lab-on-robot” systems and artificial intelligence-enhanced autonomous diagnostics. Ultimately, this review underscores the unprecedented potential of MNRs to revolutionize POCT, enabling highly accurate, accessible, and intelligent disease detection in diverse clinical settings.