Harvard Scientists Create First Bio-Bot

gul · Jul 10, 2016

Using living heart cells from a rat, they are able to manipulate when and how the cells contract, in order to manage how a robotic ray's wings flap. Right now, it's just a proof of concept, but can Roy Batty be far behind?

http://omnifeed.com/article/www.wsj...y-powered-by-heart-cells-from-rats-1467914400

Pay walled, so here is the full article:

Putting real heart into robotics, Harvard University researchers said Thursday that they have created an artificial stingray powered and guided by genetically engineered heart cells from rats.

The quest to make machines that harness living tissue is quickening world-wide, experts said. At a dozen or more laboratories in the U.S. and Europe, bioengineers are experimenting with devices that use live cells to overcome the shortcomings of conventional hardware, from designs for artificial arms with real muscles to remotely controlled motorized sperm.

In the latest advance, a team of 20 researchers led by bioengineer Kevin Kit Parker at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering demonstrated how to use the cardiac cells that power a beating heart to operate a flexible artificial organism.

Their experimental device, made public in Science on Thursday, is a soft, self-propelled swimmer that mimics the undulating motions of a stingray. By flapping its winglike elastic fins, it can steer itself through an obstacle course, guided through the twists and turns by following a blue light that selectively activates the muscle cells.

“It is exquisite,” said Stanford University bioengineer John Dabiri, who studies biological propulsion and wasn’t involved in the current project. “We all are trying to use the native language of the body to create machines that function similarly to organs or muscles. There are as many potential applications as processes that the body can perform.”

It took the Harvard researchers about three years to develop their first working prototype, but now they can make one of these biobots, vastly smaller than a real stingray, in about a week.

Each device is built around a flexible gold skeleton. The researchers coat that framework in layers of soft elastic silicone molded into the shape of fins. They then add a single layer of about 200,000 live heart cells from laboratory rats. Heart cells normally beat spontaneously, but these cells were altered by the addition of a gene from algae that makes the cells contract when exposed to certain wavelengths of blue light.

“The materials we use are a pinch of rat, a pinch of breast implant, and a pinch of gold,” Dr. Parker said.

As the heart muscle cells contract or relax in response to light cues, the fins flap up and down, the researchers said. “We have navigational control and we have control over velocity,” Dr. Parker said. “We can control how fast it is undulating and how fast it is swimming.”

Dr. Parker and his colleagues have no immediate plans to commercialize their work, but they have filed for several related patents. For now, their project is a learning experience, they said.

By mastering the biomechanics of heart tissue, the researchers hope to understand how to build a better artificial heart. “I thought that if I could build a stingray, I might have a greater insight into how the heart is built and how it varies beat to beat,” Dr. Parker said.
Click to expand...

watch it swim!

Dayton Kitchens · Jul 10, 2016

I'm wondering if this technology can one day help create battlemechs.

Will Power · Jul 12, 2016

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Harvard Scientists Create First Bio-Bot

gul Revolting Beer Drinker Administrator Formerly Important

Dayton Kitchens Banned

Will Power If you only knew the irony of my name.

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Harvard Scientists Create First Bio-Bot

gul Revolting Beer Drinker Administrator Formerly Important

Dayton Kitchens Banned

Will Power If you only knew the irony of my name.

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