India, Aug. 19 -- When I first saw a demo of the milli-spinner in Stanford Robotics Center, it reminded me of a 1966 film Fantastic Voyage in which a submarine crew is shrunk to microscopic size and ventures into the body of an injured scientist to repair the damage to his brain. Except scientists at the Stanford University imagined a more efficient way of dispensing targeted drug inside a human body - a worm-sized robot that can travel through veins and compress a blood clot, treating strokes and heart attacks.

The milli-spinner prototype takes up a small display in the medical robotics room. What looms in the room when I enter are larger robots used for imaging and surgery. The millirobot in comparison is less than one centimeter in si...