Muscle cells and electric pulses provide power to bio-bots

The group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has published its work in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

‘Biological actuation driven by cells is a fundamental need for any kind of biological machine you want to build,’ said study leader Rashid Bashir, Abel Bliss Professor and head of bioengineering at the U. of I.  ‘We’re trying to integrate these principles of engineering with biology in a way that can be used to design and develop biological machines and systems for environmental and medical applications. Biology is tremendously powerful, and if we can somehow learn to harness its advantages for useful applications, it could bring about a lot of great things.’

Previously, the group demonstrated bio-bots that ‘walk’ on their own, powered by beating heart cells from rats. However, heart cells constantly contract, denying researchers control over the bot’s motion. This makes it difficult to use heart cells to engineer a bio-bot that can be turned on and off, sped up or slowed down.