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.
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