They are the researchers of Tufts University and the Wyss Institute of Harvard University who have created the small biological robots they call Anthrobots. The human cells from the trachea (tracheal cells) can move over a surface. They have been found to promote the growth of neurons in a damaged area in a laboratory dish. The multi-celled robots were of different sizes. They ranged from the width of a human hair to the tip of a sharp pencil.
They have also been shown to have a remarkable healing effect on other cells. The researchers hope that with this discovery it will be possible to use patient-derived biobots in the future as therapeutic tools for regeneration, healing and treatment of diseases.
Little robots
The recent discovery stems from previous research in the labs of Michael Levin, Vannevar Bush professor of biology at Tufts University School of Arts & Sciences, and Josh Bongard at the University of Vermont, in which they created multicellular biological robots from frog embryo cells, called Xenobots . These have the ability to navigate corridors, collect materials, record information, heal injuries and copy themselves for a few cycles.
At the time, researchers did not know whether these capabilities relied on coming from an amphibian embryo or whether biobots could be constructed from cells from other species. With the current study, published in Advanced Science, Levin, together with PhD student Gizem Gumuskaya, discovered that bots can in fact be made from adult human cells.
Reprogramming
Follow-up questions on which the researchers will zoom in further are how cells work together and build up in the body to have this healing effect. It is also examined whether cells that are removed from their natural environment can recombine to perform different functions. “We wanted to explore what cells can do besides creating standard features in the body,” says Gumuskaya, who earned a degree in architecture before getting into biology. “By reprogramming the interactions between cells, new multicellular structures can be created.”
Exactly how the Anthrobots stimulate the growth of neurons is not yet clear, but the researchers confirmed that neurons grew under the area covered by a clustered collection of Anthrobots, which they called a “superbot.”
Magnetically controlled robots The Netherlands is also working hard on the use of robots. Although this example concerns magnetically controlled robots. Researchers from the University of Twente and Radboud university medical center recently succeeded in making tiny, magnetically controlled robots ‘swim’ through a narrow blood vessel. A special achievement that was made even more impressive because the so-called millirobots could move through the vein both with and against the blood flow. For this experiment, the researchers made a test setup of a detached aorta with kidneys.
2024-01-11 10:00:00
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