The standard definition of a robot is an electromechanical device that works automatically. But an artificial jellyfish created by Harvard and Caltech researchers goes a lot further than biomimicry using electromechanical means. It's more like an android: It looks like a real creature, moves like one, and incorporates living cardiac muscle cells.
The artificial jellyfish, dubbed "Medusoid," has cultured rat heart muscle cells that produce the pumping action that propels the artificial creature's silicone muscle structure through water.
Made of silicone and rat heart cells, the Medusoid engineered jellyfish's muscles contract like a real jellyfish when placed in liquid and shocked. (Source: California Institute of Technology/Harvard University)
"As engineers, we are very comfortable with building things out of steel, copper, concrete," said co-researcher Kevin Kit Parker, professor of bioengineering and applied physics at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, in a Harvard Gazette article describing the project. "I think of cells as another kind of building substrate, but we need rigorous quantitative design specs to move tissue engineering to a reproducible type of engineering."
Although this graceful, squishy, robot jellyfish's movements aren't nearly as elegant as those of Festo's AirJelly, they make the action of the silicone robot we reported on that mimics its surrounding look crude in comparison.
Parker, an authority on cell- and tissue-powered actuators, collaborated with Janna Nawroth, a Caltech doctoral student in biology, to reverse engineer the movements of a natural Medusa jellyfish. Nawroth’s adviser, John Dabiri, a professor of aeronautics and bioengineering at Caltech, was consulted for his expertise in biological propulsion. The researchers published their work in an article in Nature Biotechnology (subscription or payment required).
The researchers say that a major goal of creating Medusoid was to advance biological tissue engineering. To date, many of these efforts have focused on copying a tissue or organ without considering the relationship between the components and their function, or analyzing which materials would best suit that function.
Since jellyfish use their muscles to pump their way through the water, and their basic structure is similar to that of a beating human heart, the researchers decided to reverse-engineer that function to advance heart tissue research.
After mapping the alignment of subcellular protein networks in the Medusa jellyfish's muscle cells, they studied the propulsion system's electrophysiological triggering and the propulsive stroke's biomechanics. The team found that a sheet of cultured rat heart muscle tissue contracted when electrically stimulated in liquid. They used a silicone polymer to make the artificial Medusoid's body, a thin membrane with eight armlike appendages, and matched the subcellular, cellular, and supracellular jellyfish muscle architecture with the rat heart muscle cells. When the researchers placed Medusoid in a container of salt water and shocked it, the device began swimming with synchronized muscle contractions.
Is it an android? Maybe not quite yet. The researchers’ next steps will include incorporating simple intelligence so the artificial jellyfish can respond to its environment with more advanced behaviors, such as moving toward a light source, and modifying it so it can move in a particular direction.
Lipstick on a rat?? Hadn't heard of that one. I agree, Jenn, it's getting creepy when we start combining engineered living tissue with machines. But also fascinating. I think that uncanny valley may be expanding into more of a continent at this point.
Although they are bred for lab experiments, I never really thought of it going much further than rats more than getting injected with drugs that are undergoing testing, or having makeup put on them (wink).
Seriously, though, putting living tissue into robots is a tad bit creepy. More and more, after reading your posts, Ann, am I beginning to understand the term uncanny valley and why it's real.
Lou, I think it's unfortunate that the term "android" has been co-opted by a commercial enterprise, and not very accurately, either. Regarding the Medusoid, I agree about the control system--I'm really curious to know what they have in mind. This isn't quite a robot yet, or an android, but with the correct control system, it could be.
Beth, rats are definitely one of, if not the, most common animals used in lab experiments. They are bred specifically for this purpose. And incorporating living bioengineered tissue into robots appears to be a trend. I'll be posting on this subject again soon.
Ann, this is a very interesting avenue of research. From the title, of course, I thought you were talking about a cell phone.
But, seriously, do we need more jellyfish? I remember being stung by them in the Chesepeake when I was joung. Not fun. These will not have stingers, will they? Just kidding.
It would be interesting to see what type of control system the researchers come up with. These could be efficient little swimmers for long distance surveillance, for example.
Seems like there is some great research potential at the heart of this project. Rat heart muscle cells--curious about that one. Anything about the rat heart muscle that lends itself to this or is it more that rats are the go-to source for research?
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