Biological robots could aid drug screening or chemical analysis

The so-called ‘bio-bots’ developed at Illinois University are said to represent an advance in synthetic biology and demonstrate the team’s ability to forward-engineer functional machines using only hydrogel, heart cells and a 3D printer.

The team claims that, with an altered design, the bio-bots could be customised for specific applications in medicine, energy or the environment. The research team, led by Prof Rashid Bashir, published its results in the journal Scientific Reports.

‘The idea is that, by being able to design with biological structures, we can harness the power of cells and nature to address challenges facing society,’ said Bashir, an Abel Bliss professor of engineering at Illinois. ‘As engineers, we’ve always built things with hard materials; materials that are very predictable. Yet there are a lot of applications where nature solves a problem in such an elegant way. Can we replicate some of that if we can understand how to put things together with cells?’