Tiny Robotic Stingray Is Made Of Rat Heart Muscles and Gold
Credit: Karaghen Hudson and Michael Rosnach
Sciencemag.org reports that scientists have created “a nickel-sized artificial stingray whose swimming is guided by light and powered by rat heart muscle cells.”
[See STEM Rules features on biotechnology.]
The researchers at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University for Biologically Inspired Engineering hope someday “by melding cells and artificial materials into a pulsating structure” that they can use bioengineering to build a human heart.
[Watch Robotic Stingray video.]
Phototactic guidance of a tissue-engineered soft-robotic ray
Sung-Jin Park, Mattia Gazzola, Kyung Soo Park, Shirley Park, Valentina Di Santo, Erin L. Blevins, Johan U. Lind, Patrick H. Campbell, Stephanie Dauth, Andrew K. Capulli, Francesco S. Pasqualini, Seungkuk Ahn, Alexander Cho, Hongyan Yuan, Ben M. Maoz, Ragu Vijaykumar, Jeong-Woo Choi, Karl Deisseroth, George V. Lauder L. Mahadevan, Kevin Kit Parker
Tags: robotics, robot, bioengineering, biotechnology
