Scientists from Penn State University have taken us one major step closer to realizing our hopes of a Fantastic Voyage future by controlling the movements of living cells by inserting synthetic motors directly inside of them.

Medical nanotechnology is a holy grail for futurists and, once realized, these molecular machines will revolutionize medical science and the human condition as we know it. Nanobots will eventually be able to perform medical diagnoses internally, eliminate toxins from the body, and produce medicines directly inside of the body. Additionally, they will eventually be able to supplement internal biological processes such as respiration and immunity. Short-term, controllable cells could be used to cruise throughout the body, communicating with each other and performing various types of diagnoses and therapies.

However, getting there requires understanding how to work at these insanely small scales. Obviously, the ability to design and manipulate objects measuring merely a few molecules across presents several challenges. Most likely, we won’t see this type of medical technology used regularly for a few more decades. However, every once in a while we’re reminded that we are getting there, step by step.

In the video above, a team of biologists and chemists accomplished this latest feat by inserting synthetic motors inside of living cells, moving them around using ultrasonic waves and steering them magnetically. Though not as elegant as self-propelling, self-guided nanobots that have been envisaged by sci fi films and books, it’s an important first step to that fiction becoming an eventual reality.

As for the nanomotors themselves, they are rocket-shaped particles that move inside the cells, spinning against the cell’s membrane. Remarkably, the cells exhibited internal mechanical responses that the scientists had never seen before.

“This research is a vivid demonstration that it may be possible to use synthetic nanomotors to study cell biology in new ways,” noted study co-author Tom Mallouk in a Penn State statement. “We might be able to use nanomotors to treat cancer and other diseases by mechanically manipulating cells from the inside. Nanomotors could perform intracellular surgery and deliver drugs noninvasively to living tissues.”