While we might not be capable of the really cool stuff they did in Dennis Quaid’s 1987 movie Innerspace, scientists today are pushing the frontiers of miniaturization and robotic health care. Over at Technology Review they have a write-up on a swallowable robot developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon. As the robot moves into the intestines, scientists are able to activate small anchors which can hold the device in place at various positions as it moves through the body, without doing any damage to the surrounding tissue. 

Robot-capsule anchoring: An initial prototype of the robot-capsule anchors inside a transparent tube, mimicking the way that it would stick in the esophagus.
Credit: Metin Sitti, Carnegie Mellon University

Right now a lot of the exciting things happening in this space are diagnostic in nature, however the promise of reparative nanobots floating around our bloodstream is appearing increasingly likely.