The boundary between humans and machines is blurred. Scientists from Tokyo University’s industrial science created biohybrid robot — a robotic device that contains living tissue — which has worked for more than a week. The study was published in the journal Science Robotics. The first step in creating biohybrid robot to create the skeleton of the robot. Scientists have created his own version using a 3D-printed resin. The skeleton added joints and anchors, which could strengthen the living tissue. The electrodes would stimulate a lively the muscles, causing them to shrink.
The next step was the creation of a living muscle. To do this, the team took myoplasty, type of stem cells that eventually Mature into various kinds of muscle cells. These cells were included in the hydrogel plate. The researchers then punched the holes in the plates to attach them to the anchors of the skeleton, and added a few striped structures, which should stimulate growth of muscle fibers between the anchors.
“As soon as we build muscles, we successfully used them as antagonistic pairs of robots, one sank and the other was loose, as in the body,” said the author of the work of Shoji Takeuchi. “The fact that they provided a counter force on each other, did not allow them to decline, as in previous studies”.
Signature and the only motion was the bending of the “finger tip” up and down. This is enough to raise a tiny little ring and place it on the peg. By working together, the two robots were able to raise a small square die.
Admittedly, the development of “biohybrid” finger does not seem to be the most effective way of solving this problem. But, according to researchers, robots such as these can serve other, more practical applications in the future.
First, we could create more complex robots and then study them to get new information about how the human body works and how we could cope with medical problems. “If we can bring these muscles into a single device, we are able to reproduce complex muscular interaction, allow the operation of the hands, wrists and other parts of the body,” says lead author Yuya Morimoto.
Second, we could start to use these robots in the pharmaceutical industry. Scientists could test drugs on them or conduct other experiments with the muscles biohybrid robots, not turning to the counterparts in the animal world. In fact, it is something like this technology “body-on-a-chip”, which is also in active development.
Although the possibility biohybrid robot now seem limited, the future of medicine may well be in his (biohybrids) hands.
Cyborgs here: scientists put living cells in the finger of the robot
Ilya Hel